Mystery....fungus...egg....stu ff??

[xylaria]

There was a thread last year with the same slime mold.

It spends the rest of the year as amoebic single celled haploid "creatures". Then every spring that have a get together, get very friendly share genetics and form the diploid creature you see now. It then crawls up as high it can and then turns into a dusty spore mass.

Slime-molds don't turn up in an average field guide. They were placed in thier own kingdom when I was at uni. Makes you think, a whole kingdom of life that hardly anyone knows about, with a life cycle that is too far fetched for most sci-fi.

 

[British Red]

Tahnks for that Xylaria. I thought I had seen reference to something similar here - but I'd slept since then so had forgotten its content

Weird things though - I like weird!

Red

 

[Bushwhacker]

I saw a load of those at the weekend, not on pine though.

 

[mace242]

There was a thread last year with the same slime mold.

It spends the rest of the year as amoebic single celled haploid "creatures". Then every spring that have a get together, get very friendly share genetics and form the diploid creature you see now. It then crawls up as high it can and then turns into a dusty spore mass.

Slime-molds don't turn up in an average field guide. They were placed in thier own kingdom when I was at uni. Makes you think, a whole kingdom of life that hardly anyone knows about, with a life cycle that is too far fetched for most sci-fi.

Just been reading about slime moulds. Fascinating. You really could not make it up. Isn't nature just, no other word for it, brilliant?

 

[Galemys]

Just been reading about slime moulds. Fascinating. You really could not make it up. Isn't nature just, no other word for it, brilliant?

I found the same slime mold today! On dead but standing pine trees. The biggest blob was about 8 cm in diameter and had a sticky black goo in it, I presume these are the spores.

Here´s a video of another (smaller) species of slime mold (Dyctiostelium discoideum) on youtube, it is unbelievable, X-files stuff...
They normally live as single cells until one begins to release a hormone that attracts the others, they then pile up to form a multicellular ´slug´ that can move as one creature, this will finally halt and erect a stalk-like kind of fruiting body that can release the spores:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWGA7kIeE0Q&feature=related

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Hardworms]

This is just one of many reasons why I'll never believe that life evolved! Talk about science fiction. This is beautiful.

 

[forestwalker]

This is just one of many reasons why I'll never believe that life evolved! Talk about science fiction. This is beautiful.

But that is the neat thing: despite looking like something an Star Trek scriptwriter on acid would come up with, it is still clearly related to all other life, and the same patterns come up there as in other living organisms. Remember that reality is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense.

But having the creationism-evolution debate here would probably get us both banned, so if you really want to debate it lets do so by PM.

 

[Hardworms]

Why would it have us banned? Any more so than having a debate on flat grind vs Convex? or Stainless vs Carbon? These are ideas, opinions, why should we hide them or keep them private?
I have read much on the subject of evolution since I was a boy, but have yet to find anything which consclusively proves the theory, or even come close. I increasingly meet scientists who, although they adhere to the principles, admit that, for them, belief in the theory is based on belief itself rather than proof. That's not science, it's religion.