Plasmodium, Slime Mold #2

[Ken Ramos]

Not being able to get out and run the cool damp hollows of the mountains or browse along the cool shady banks of a mountain stream, like I used to so often, has forced me into considering the chance of finding and studying myxo's a little closer to home.



I have this habit of associating slime molds with the very damp and humid environments so often encountered during the summer months in the mountainous areas somewhat near home. Where I live in the flat lands and foothills, the ground surface area, leaf litter, and soil are much drier than that of the mountains, which along an isolated thermal boundry, catch and capture the majority of the rainfall long before it reaches the eastern part of the state and down into the area in which I reside.



So now, after a good days rain or an afternoon and evening shower, I now scour the woodlands adjacent to my home and along the tiny creek to be found therein for these wonderful and marvelous forms of life. At present I have no ID for this particular slime mold. In the amoeboid or plasmodial state, identification is impossible until after fruitification. The subject was found on a piece of badly rotted wood, a section of a tree limb that had fallen to the ground by the creek. The size is relatively unimportant for now I think, since the plasmoidum is constantly moving, expanding, retracting, and of course growing in size. I will check on it again tomorrow morning to see what progress has been made towards fruitification and hopefully a mass of fruiting bodies or an aethalium will provide me with a little something for the microscope.

What you see here by the way, for those who may not know, is the result of two amoeba or two compatible amoeboflagellates, resulting from spore germination (1n = haploid) acting as gametes to fuze and to form a zygote, resulting in this diploid (2n), multinucleate amoeboid mass of protoplasm. A single multinucleate cell, capable of locomotion and of feeding (trophism). Also the plasmodia of some species have proven to have somewhat of a pseudo-intellignece or maybe even a form of simple intelligence, when being put to the test of finding food by navigating the shortest possible route through a maze to the food source.

Sorry Betty...no descriptive termonology in this one, bullet holes, liposuction leftovers, etc.

[jaharris1001]

amazing stuff here Ken,, thanks for the explanation,, I didnt know all that stuff,, man,,, you sounded like a science textbook there bud Very interesting stuff there fir sure

[Ken Ramos]

Thanks Jim. I developed an affinity for these organisms quite some time ago and go absolutely nuts when I come across them. Also I have done quite a bit of reading up on these organisms and their life cycle has one referring back and forth to basic or elementary biology and cell struture in the study of these things. They are truly remarkable organisms to which we may have a very distant relationship to many eons ago, after the asteroid strike of course.

[Ken Ramos]

Approximately 12hrs has past since the first image above, of the plasmodium, was taken. Somewhere, sometime, in the depths of the night, this remarkable transformation took place. The plasmodium was that of Stemonitis...



Here the sporangia are still fused and have yet to dry and to spread out, thus releasing the spores. Remnants of the slime sheath are still wet and visible on the substrate. To think on this as once being an animal and then to see it having transformed itself into something whose physiology is so entirely different from that of its former self in the beginning, is like something out of science fiction.

[beetleman]

WOW Ken, you are really finding the cool stuff this year and capturing there life cycle to boot After seeing your pictures and the luck I had finding slime molds last year, I went out looking for some this weekend and didn`t find a single one. It has been so dry up here in the Northeast. Less than 1" of rain for the month of May. Very unusual. Thanks for sending the drought up our way Ken

[Ken Ramos]

Thanks for sending the drought up our way Ken

Hey, no problem. Anything for you folks up north as long as we don't have to put it in a Mason jar. I had to really look hard for these things Doug, though we are having a bit of rain here and there. Try early morning while the ground is wet with dew and prowl around in the leaves a bit and around really rotten and decaying wood lying on the ground. Look really close and take a hand lens or magnifier with you, along with with your camera of course. Oh, and a snake bite kit!

Thanks Doug!