Kleptoplasty, the ability to steal another organism’s photosynthetic powers, in animals is thought to be extremely rare in animals. Its this skill that allows the slug pictured above to survive and regrow its body after being decapitated. (Sayaka Mitoh/)

Some sea slugs can live without their bodies. Cut their heads off, and the noggins can still survive for months, scientists recently discovered. Those detached, self-propelling, heads can then regenerate whole new slug-bodies for them.

Scientists don’t really know how those slugs manage it, but there’s at least two species of a group called sacoglossans who can do it. They suspect the slugs’ astounding survival powers depend on a backup power source: The animals can steal the photosynthesizing powers from the algae around them.

This ability is known as kleptoplasty, and slugs aren’t the only ones that possess it. Numerous other life-forms are kleptoplastic, capable of pillaging chloroplasts—the parts of a cell that facilitate photosynthesis—from other organisms, such as algae in water. Kleptoplastic organisms can take those chloroplasts and use them as their own.