No Brains, No Feet, No Problem*
| February
25, 2014 Recently I've become interested in the rubbery-looking, neon-colored blobs I've seen clinging to trees and rotting logs. So I Googled. *The quote under the title is from a [PBS NEWSHOUR] article where I found out that 'Slime mold is not a plant or animal. It’s not a fungus, though it sometimes resembles one. Slime mold, in fact, is a soil-dwelling amoeba, a brainless, single-celled organism, often containing multiple nuclei.' Who knew? February 26 and March 5, 2014 I retraced yesterday's route to take a few more pictures. To my surprise, most of the slime molds I'd photographed were no longer there. Wait! What? Can they actually move? Apparently so! According to [Wikipedia], 'When food is abundant a slime mold exists as a single-celled organism. When food is in short supply, many of these single-celled organisms will congregate and start moving as a single body...up to several feet in 24 hours' |
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I am reminded
of the 1958 Horror film 'The Blob'. The amoeba-like alien life-form
rolled along consuming everything in its way, growing and growing. There have been a number of 'slime and blob' movies. I wonder if slime mold was the inspiration for any of them? |
Here's one example,
commonly known as Dog Vomit. Charming.
I thought this was an orange but it's slime mold.
Update: I went closer. Oooops, it really *is* an orange.
On Sunday this clung to a tree on my route. Today it was gone.
I wonder if it crawled off somewhere?
A delicately-hued example nestled in the branches of a tree.
February 26, 2014
Glowing beside the trail was this one.
Several were visible on nearby tree trunks.
March
5, 2014
Here's a new crop.
There were several in different developmental stages on this tree.
These were on a log which spanned the raging North Creek.
|
I had no idea there were [so many] kinds of slime molds. They feed on 'wood, flowers, fruits, mulch, any other type of dead plant material, bacteria, yeast, and fungal spores...' [link] I'll have to be on the look-out! And what
a great insult. |
'You ain't nothin' but a slime mold...!'Finally, here
are two samples of camouflage I saw on the way home today.
Can you spot the bird? Mouseover the picture to see if you are right.
