Image of the Day: Green Eggs

Spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) embryos are tinted green by the oxygen-producing algae (Oophila amblystomatis) that grow inside.


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Spotted salamander embryos hatching out of their egg capsules

ROGER HANGARTER

New research demonstrates that green algae not only grow inside of a spotted salamander egg, but enter cells within its body. Thus far, this is the only example of endosymbiosis in a vertebrate.

(See J.A. Burns et al., “Transcriptome analysis illuminates the nature of the intracellular interaction in a vertebrate-algal symbiosis,” eLIFE, doi:10.7554/eLife.22054, 2017.)

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