Slime mold

I never realized or thought about how many slime molds(myxomycetes) are around us. Of course, it is hard not to miss the tapioca slime mold like I have shown y’all before. And you have probably seen the dog vomit/scramble eggs slime mold, but after watching a presentation at BRIT brown bag lecture by Ashley Bordelon and Harold Keller, I got to know slime mold better. And it is so interesting! Here is a link to the BRIT project: Fungi, Myxomycetes, and Trees Program. I have recently been finding them at home and the grasslands with all the wet weather. Ashley and Harold (both with BRIT) were kind enough to confirm an ID plus suggest a possible ID on another.

This one has a cool common name…Carnival Candy Slime Mold (Arcyria denudata)! It is less than 4mm tall. Jim had a suggestion for a name too, the corny dog slime mold 🙂

Do you remember me showing you this tiny one a few weeks ago? I thought it was a mushroom but it turns out it is a slime mold as well. Harold suggested it might be either Didymium or possibly Physarum. Thanks Harold!

These I found on a grapevine bark. These are the sporangia, the fruiting bodies. Sorta look like a tiny mushroom. Both mushrooms and slime mold have spores. Slime mold does not have hyphae like mushrooms and lichens. This website has a good chart that shows the difference between mushrooms and slime mold : Difference Between Slime Molds and Fungi. Still hard to tell the different many times.

Slime mold on a Post Oak leaf.

Close up.

This one has white sporangia. The white corny dog slime mold would be the name I would call it… LOL.

Little gray slime mold!

Close up.

Looks like a slime mold to me. I was lazy and did not look under the scope to confirm if it had hyphae or not.

Maybe slime mold in the early stages of producing the sporangia.

And I apparently brought home a weevil with the slime mold. And I showed you the nematode that was in with the slime mold in a previous post. So much to find!

Article: Ask the Naturalist: What Are These Mysterious Tiny “Eggs”? Has a great movie.

Article: Scientists Discover a New Plant Organ

So much to see and learn about in the micro world. So get your loupes or hand lens and see what is right in your own backyard!

Keep looking!

3 Comments

  1. Sooooo many kinds. I gotta keep an eye out. Now I wonder about the fruiting bodies we saw on a sweetgum tree a few weeks ago. Maybe we’ll see it again.

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