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Friendly slime
Sep. 5th, 2015 07:53 am
Now that's a big dog vomit slime mold. I'm guessing the potted plant was heavily watered, making the myxomycete gather and feed on the organisms produced/attracted by the water.
Now that's a big dog vomit slime mold. I'm guessing the potted plant was heavily watered, making the myxomycete gather and feed on the organisms produced/attracted by the water.
280 days of Urbpandemonium #44
May. 17th, 2015 05:24 pm
It's been too dry in Massachusetts to see any fungi or slime molds--except in our compost container! This is Fuligo septica*, the "scrambled egg" or "dog vomit" slime mold. It's a weird organism, composed of millions of individual crawling cells acting together as a collective creature, eating bacteria and other organic matter as it travels. Eventually it finishes its journey and the mass changes from a foamy blob into a mass of spores that can continue the trip elsewhere. Fuligo septica has been a favorite on this blog for many years.
The black thing at the leading edge of the slime mold is a piece of plastic broken off the compost container.
* literally "Rotten soot"
Brooklyn Nature, part one:
Jul. 25th, 2013 09:23 pm
Most of these Brooklyn Nature post pics are going to from Prospect Park, a nearly 600 acre Olmsted landscape, of which I explored a few hundred square feet. Alexis and I first looked at very early on Sunday morning, before the wreckage of Saturday night festivities had been cleared away. Here's the base of a planter, delightfully overgrown with moss and weeds.
( Read more... )
I don't know about you but I've been seeing a lot of our old friend Fuligo septica lately. Mostly I've been finding it old and dry on wood chips. Once I flicked it hard with my finger and got my fingertip covered in spores. I tried to think of something mischievous do do with my spore-dusted digit, but in the end I just wiped it off. It's not like it's hard to find the species around--I don't need to sneak it into places.
I caught this batch early in its life as it crawled through a bed of moss on a rotten log. I don't usually find it looking this much like scrambled eggs, so this was nice.
Private Urban Nature Walk
Jun. 26th, 2013 06:22 am
I offered up a certificate for a naturalist-led walk as an auction item at one of my fundraisers, and the winners redeemed it last Sunday. They were a couple of old friends who live in Allston, and we walked around their neighborhood and found lots of cool things. I was (as usual) so focused on finding things and talking that I didn't take many photos. These polypore mushrooms growing through a chain link fence reminded me to get the camera out!
We also found Fuligo septica, my old friend the dog vomit slime mold, crawling up a patch of grass.
100 Species #65: Dog Vomit Slime Mold
Jun. 29th, 2011 08:55 pm
This blob of Fuligo septico was found crawling across some dead wood near the driveway.
Dog vomit slime mold is the myxomycete most encountered by people in the cities and suburbs. Partly this is because it feeds on a very common anthropogenic food source: bacteria that gather upon mulch and woodchips; partly this is because it is among the largest slime mold species in the world, with a global distribution; and partly because it looks like a bright lump of cack. The organism--not an animal or fungus but essentially a giant amoeba (or perhaps a collection of millions of conjoined amoebae)--crawls very slowly across the surface on which it feeds, eventually stopping and transforming into spores which are carried on the wind.
A much better and more complete version of this entry is here: http://urbpan.livejournal.com/316953.html
that's back when Fuligo septica was 365 urban species #193.
Here's the XKCD comic that mentions the organism, which you may have already sent me: http://xkcd.com/877/ It is quite wonderful.
365 Urban Species. #193: Dog Vomit
Jul. 12th, 2006 08:57 pm
Photos by
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cottonmanifesto. Location: Landscaping outside power generator building for Longwood Medical area hospitals, Boston.Urban species # 193: Dog vomit Fuligo septica
The most disgusting but unassailably accurate common name I've ever heard for any organism is "dog vomit" slime mold. A foamy pile of goo, yellowish like bile, or pinkish like stomach contents, no name fits quite like dog vomit. Sometimes it is called "scrambled egg" slime mold, but where's the fun in that? Actually, for a brief time in its life cycle, it does have the lumpy texture and sulphur color of scrambled eggs. But slime molds are curious creatures, changing from one form to the next--first appearing mysteriously, traveling a short distance, then clumping up, then apparently turning back into the very dust of the earth. Often times beautifully, like wolf's milk. But not dog vomit.
Most urban people encounter dog vomit slime mold on the wood chips of a landscaped park or parking lot edge. Sometimes it coalesces in a yard or garden. In a matter of days or hours, the plasmodium (collection of nuclei with no cell membranes) becomes an aethalium (spore-bearing structure). This structure dries, and the spores are dispersed on the wind. The aethalium is edible, and has been part of the diet of various indigenous people. Its English common name, its almost equally off-putting scientific name, not to mention its appearance, help to preclude this usage for most contemporary foragers.
( Dog vomit picture story )
