Previous questions have addressed whether a large active animal could run off photosynthesis alone and the answer seems to be no and that it could only provide around 4% of the animals daily usage but I was wondering if they had black photosynthetic pigments and a large surface area (compared to humans and cows which the questions referred to) could this provide all or a higher percentage of their energy?
The creature can be similar to a solar powered sea slug, in that it sucks out the chloroplast from algae but in this case the black photosynthetic pigments from plant life that survive in very dimly lit habitats (possibly a cave system or dark side of a tidally locked planet etc) so have evolved black pigments to capture as much light as possible. The symbiont creature lives outside of the dimly lit habitat and can be exposed to the full sunlight, hopefully providing it enough energy for its larger size and active life.
The creatures that I had in mind were small foragers that spend time on rocks or the sides of trees basking in the sun to large flying creatures that ride the jet streams, all of the species will either have a large surface area flattened body or like the flying type and others can extend skin flaps or areas of their body to increase their surface area to receive more light. All of the creatures are relatively slow moving or spend as least energy as possible but many have the ability for bursts of energy when needing to escape a predator or catch prey. I had foraging and catching prey in mind for those that can't meet their full energy requirements from photosynthesis.
I have read about some reasons why black pigments don't exist in plants, from they don't need to as evolution has meant that the visible light wavelengths are all they need, upper layer black pigments would take all the light so lower layers would receive non and things about the electron transfer process which I don't fully understand but black pigments seem like something that with the right evolutionary pressures could exist.
Would black photosynthetic pigments and a relatively large surface area body allow theses creatures to survive from photosynthesis alone or if not all, what percentage of their daily energy needs could it provide?