arf@gagme.chi.il.us (jack schmidling) (06/12/91)
Article 4615 (32 more) in sci.bio: From: doug@netcom.COM (Doug Merritt) Subject: Slime mold??? >Does slime mold ever settle into a form that resembles a sponge? ARF says: Yes >Something that *looks* like a sponge sometimes appears out of a crack in the tile in my bathroom (moist environment), and shows indications of having moved up to 6 inches laterally overnight. >The body was about 2 inches wide & deep the first time, and this time was about 2 inches wide but maybe 5 inches long. It looks very much like a sponge (off yellow, dotted with tiny holes etc), but is rather crumbly when it's cleaned away. ARF says: The part that was moving was the plasmodium. It moves much like a giant amoeba. The crubly stuff was the fruiting body anagalous to the mushroom of more common fungi. Some species of slime mold have the plasmodium ripen directly into a giant mass of spores, while others sprout tiny mushroom-like sporangia. One spore, typically 5-10 microns long, properly nurtured, will produce the whole mess. The process is fascinating to watch. I just so happen to have caught such an event, in time lapse some years ago. Here comes the commercial..... "THE ROTTEN WORLD OF FUNGUS" is available (VHS video) at your local library or from........ If anyone really cares, I will be happy to send info on it. arf