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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
Don't fear the Blob [CA]
    #8221064 - 03/31/08 06:36 PM (16 years, 18 hours ago)

March 29, 2008 - Record Searchlight

Don't fear the Blob
Slime mold is weird but harmless
By Laura Christman

Slime molds are not minerals, animals, plants or fungi. It's difficult to get a grip on just what these slippery blobs are.

Some aren't visible without a microscope; others stretch a couple of feet -- or more. They come clear or pale, but also can be neon-orange, bright yellow and other flashy hues. They can take on beautiful, intricate forms, like a strange plant from the pages of a science-fiction story. But they also can look like a wad of chewed gum or something the dog urped up.

The most unifying characteristic of slime molds, it seems, is weirdness.

"They are weirdo organisms," said Susan Libonati, a botany instructor at Shasta College in Redding who has a Ph.D in mycology. "I think they are great. They are beautiful and fascinating."

Slime molds were long glopped in with fungi. But on closer inspection, scientists realized they were not the same. They were reassigned to the protists. Kingdom Protista includes algae, protozoa and other odd organisms.

"It's sort of a junk drawer," said Steven Stephenson, who has studied slime molds for some 30 years. Things that don't fit neatly into a category end up there.

True slime molds are known as myxomycetes or plasmodial slime mold, Stephenson, author of "Myxomycetes: A Handbook of Slime Molds," said in a phone interview from Fayetteville, Ark., where he is a research professor at the University of Arkansas. They are surprisingly common, but easily overlooked, he said.

A slime mold begins life as a spore. "They live in the soil and wood and look like little amoebae," Stephenson said.

The tiny organism grows into a mass of slime, remaining a single cell but having multiple nuclei. In this plasmodial stage, the goo is on the move, searching for food.

"You can get really big slime molds that crawl across your lawn," Libonati said.

They lack speed, however. Stephenson said slime molds move only a few millimeters in an hour.

Despite the "mold" moniker, these mobile organisms are not like mold in the shower or mold on cheese. They aren't dangerous.

"It's an unfortunate name," Stephenson said.

"They don't hurt anything. They eat bacteria," Libonati said.

Slime molds keep bacteria in check. Some also feed on fungi. There are many insects that eat slime mold.

Slime molds transform from their blobbish bacteria-eating phase into fruiting bodies, similar to the way fungi give rise to mushrooms.

"They can transform in just a few hours into some of the most exquisitely beautiful objects you'll ever find in nature," Stephenson said.

The fruiting bodies release spores to begin the life cycle again.

You don't have to travel to some exotic location to witness this weirdness. Slime molds are here among us. Maybe even in your yard.

"If you add water to a mulch bed, you'll get slime molds, no matter where you live," Stephenson said.

The Internet is filled with questions from bewildered gardeners about dog vomit slime mold (Fuligo septica) on bark mulch.

"Yes, it does look like dog vomit," Libonati said.

Tom Volk, a biology professor at the University of Wisconsin in La Crosse who has a Web site on fungi and slime molds, advises gardeners not try to eliminate slime mold -- you can't, he says -- but to enjoy it.

Stephenson noted that a blast of water will wash away the slime, but the spores will still be there.

Libonati has found fuligo along the Sacramento River in Redding. Another slime mold she's seen near the river is lycogala, made up of tiny salmon-pink spheres that turn a silvery gray as the slime mold matures.

Participants in a Shasta chapter of the California Native Plant Society outing recently came across a bright-orange slime mold along the Sacramento River Trail in Redding.

"It was an orange, slimy thing on a stick about the size of a pencil," said Jay Thesken, who was on the hike. The slime mold was so bright that he at first thought it was spray-paint.

Nature photographer Ken DeCamp of Shasta Lake has seen various slime molds in the north state. He discovered his first about three years ago on the Bailey Cove Trail at Lake Shasta.

"I could not figure out what I was looking at. It was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen," he said.

Prime places to see slime molds are damp, shady areas where there are downed logs, pine cones or old branches on the ground, he said.

"They are difficult to find ... You have to look very, very closely. When I go seriously looking for them, I never find them. It's always by accident," he said.

Stephenson said the best time to find most slime molds is late spring through mid-fall.

Stephenson, who has given talks and workshops on slime molds for years, says they are something most people are completely unaware of. "The average person does not know that they exist."

"It's a little on the esoteric side," Libonati said. "... It's another part of the wild, weird, wonderful world of biology. The more you look, the more you see."


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InvisibleBEEP

Registered: 01/06/08
Posts: 1,385
Re: Don't fear the Blob [CA] [Re: veggie]
    #8221600 - 03/31/08 08:42 PM (16 years, 16 hours ago)

finally news on the shroomery that actually has something to do with mycology.

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Offlineorigami.octopus
Mycoporn fanaticin training


Registered: 11/17/07
Posts: 256
Last seen: 15 years, 11 months
Re: Don't fear the Blob [CA] [Re: BEEP]
    #8221893 - 03/31/08 09:30 PM (16 years, 15 hours ago)

awwwwsome....

any pictures of a huge slime mold sliding across someone's lawn?


--------------------
I like to look at mushrooms the way most people like to look at flowers.

this is an amazing game
http://www.kongregate.com/games/customlogic/sprout

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Invisibletealeaf
Just Touch It
 User Gallery

Registered: 09/21/06
Posts: 2,907
Re: Don't fear the Blob [CA] [Re: origami.octopus]
    #8221998 - 03/31/08 09:48 PM (16 years, 15 hours ago)

i spotted one growing or whatever the hell it was doing last year on a milwaukee sidewalk. i was so confused as to what it was since it was a neon orange blob plopped on the ground.

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