Most mornings before his commute, Will climbs the yard to his apiary to check on the bees. This past week he sent me a text:



There’s a slime mold on the stump near the bees

Slime molds have been a subject of fascination for me since A.P. Bio in high school (i.e. for a long time). Once classified as fungi (mushrooms), they now belong to the Kingdom Protoctista as fungus-like protists. The Kingdom Protoctista was “designed by exclusion” to provide a taxonomic home for organisms which are neither truly plants, nor animals, nor fungi, nor prokaryotes (the latter are organisms which lack a true cellular nucleus, of which slime molds have many!).

This particular slime mold is the common Fuligo septica, more affectionately[?] known as the “dog vomit” slime mold. They prefer an environment of decaying wood, so the stump seat in the outdoor classroom near the beehives was an ideal habitat in which individual F. septica cells could find one another and morph into a visible, single-celled organism with multiple (thousands upon thousands) of nuclei from its constituents.

To restate: What you’re seeing is a single-celled organism, containing thousands of nuclei contributed by the individual F. septica cells who met up on our septic drainfield (of all appropriate places) to fuse together into a comparatively massive unit.

Unlike fungi, slime molds are mobile (clocking a top speed of 1 millimeter/hour). Furthermore, they ingest their prey of bacteria, fungi, and yeast present in decomposing organic matter through phagocytosis, during which they engulf the organic matter and break it down into basic nutrients which are absorbed through the cell wall. The nitrogen cycle in action!

In addition to their important work on the homestead, slime molds have inspired such pop culture gems as 1958 sci-fi classic The Blob (filmed in Phoenixville, PA, not far from Satoyama!), modeled for computer algorithms of network optimization (resulting in the programmed movement of some video game characters), and demonstrated the potential of leaderless groups acting toward a shared goal. They also solve mazes in their spare time and, like Will, enjoy long hikes in the woods!

Video credit: Andrew Adamatzky. More info.