There's fungus among us. And slime mold

No, I'm not talking about politics.

It's that time of year again. Occasional commenter Fstorch sent me this photo he took the other day of a field full of mushrooms just down the street a ways.

He was driving by and saw all these mushrooms that had sprouted up practically overnight. Huge mushrooms, all over the whole field. Intrepid nature photographer that he is, he immediately circled back and got his camera and documented the event. And of course sent it to me, because, well, I asked him to. They do spring up all over the place here this time of year -- and not just mushrooms. All kinds of fungi.

Also slime mold, which as it turns out, isn't really a fungus, technically. It just sort of looks like it must be fungal in nature, and it usually appears in the same kinds of places, and under the same general conditions: hot, humid, dark, dank, yucky. Decaying wood chip mulch, yum.

In fact, slime molds (Kingdom: Protista; Phylum: Amoebozoa Class: Mycetozoa) were classified with the fungi for a long time, at least by the mycologists, who called them Myxomycetes ("slime fungi"). The zoologists also claimed them, however, and classified them as Mycetozoa, or "fungus animals," which I think is charming. The zoologists appear to have prevailed in some respects.

These photos are from late last summer, and also from Fstorch; I'm not sure why I didn't post them here at the time, but I think it was at the beginning of that blogging and writing and thinking slump that I had going for a while there. Slime mold is more interesting than politics, as you can see.

Anyway, these photos show a slime colony in two of its several life cycle manifestations. Seriously cool looking stuff, I think, although apparently it's sometimes mistaken for dog vomit. It's even referred to sometimes as Dog Vomit Mold. I'm not making that up. This one was in the little garden right outside our neighborhood pub. And yes! it really does move! Kind of. You can sort of see it when you compare these two pictures, even accounting for the difference in scale. They were taken maybe a day apart.

And this from the wikipedia entry on slime molds:

"In the DVD release of "This is Spinal Tap" there is an outtake of an interview with David St. Hubbins where he speaks of slime moulds, saying "They are both plant AND animal...it's like they can't make up their mind...but if they ever did, they can take us over just like that!"

Think about it. But not too hard.