5 of 100: Slime mold

"Slime mold" is such an ugly term for what is in fact fascinating and beautiful. Let's call them myxomycetes instead—their technical name (though yes, that translates essentially to "slime fungi"). Or multinucleate plasmodia—plasmodia being, according to Merriam-Webster, "a motile multinucleate mass of protoplasm resulting from fusion of uninucleate amoeboid cells." 

Okay, we'll go with slime mold for short. But seriously, these organisms are amazing, neither plants, animals, nor fungi, but sharing characteristics of all three. That puts them in the Hydra-headed kingdom of Protista, or (M-W again) "any of a diverse taxonomic group . . . of eukaryotic organisms that are unicellular and sometimes colonial or less often multicellular and that typically include the protozoans, most algae, and often some fungi (such as slime molds)." (The other kingdoms, to remind you, are Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, and Monera, or single-celled non-nucleated prokaryots, such as bacteria.)

As one website explains, "Slime moulds are peculiar protists that normally take the form of amoeba but also develop fruit bodies that release spores, and are superficially similar to the sporangia of fungi." An article from the Smithsonian Magazine offers a good description of the life cycle of plasmodial slime molds:

The taxonomy of myxos depends on what the fruiting bodies look like: size, shape, color and their "complexion" (smooth or warty), as well as microscopic characteristics detected back at a lab. They are found in rotting logs, stumps, bark and similar microhabitats on all continents. A myxo begins life as a microscopic spore. After it’s shaken out like a salt grain from its "parent" fruiting body, it germinates to produce a cell that in turn joins another of its fellows to form a zygote. The zygote devours bacteria found in decaying wood and elsewhere, increases its size by nuclear division, then masses into a blob called a plasmodium. The plasmodium—which can be clear, a preppy khaki, hot pink, or a flashy yellow, orange or red—acts like a giant amoeba, gorging on its prey of bacteria, spores and even other myxos until it runs out of food, whereupon it hikes off at about 1/25 of an inch per hour to a suitable location to sprout the fruiting bodies. The ideal spot is high enough to catch a passing breeze and dry enough to avoid fungi. Then the whole program repeats itself.

And if you should want to read more about myxomycetes, Mount Rainier National Park has a friendly but thorough discussion (60 different types of slime mold are catalogued within its boundaries). 

But okay, I promised photos. That's because photos are what attracted me to this slimy subject in the first place: the macros by Barry Webb that you see above. I discovered these on Facebook, in a group called—I kid you not—Slime Mold Identification & Appreciation. (It's groups like that that keep me coming back to FB...) Barry kindly allowed me to feature his work here. Click on them to see them large. They're worth a study. (Scroll to the end for a couple more.)

Here are some in situ (unless otherwise noted, by Crow Vecchio, from the MRNP site mentioned above):

Fuligo septica (familiarly known as dog vomit slime mold
or, more appetizingly, scrambled eggs slime mold)

Caratiomyxa fruticulosa var. poroides

Trichia decipiens

Leocarpus fragilis

Stemonitis splendens (photo by Oniroid)

Stemonitopsis typhina

Lycogala epidendrum (commonly known as
wolf's milk slime mold)

Tubifera ferruginosa

And a couple last Barry Webb close-ups. Amazing!