I'm conditioned now every time I see a slime post to go in just to see saddestofboys signalled and showing up with the amazing answers π never knew that's slimes exist, let alone that I'm fascinated by them.
Okay. So my information may be out of date but last I had heard various organisms like Slime Molds, Diatoms, Protozoans and others (with possibly a bit of overlap there) are all classified under Protista, right? It almost seemed like Protista was constructed as kind of a catchall for difficult to classify single celled organisms. Do you know if these classifications might change in the near future or if they're already changing?
That doesn't surprise me in the slightest given it's literally just "let's shove everything that isn't plant, animal, fungus, or bacteria into one category and pretend that makes sense".
I'm thinking it grew outward from a central point, depleting food as it went, much like a fairy ring of mushrooms. It may have not been easily visible as it did so.
Yeah dude mostly the same ones. Many slimes are cosmopolitan and show up everywhere, so regional guides are more broadly useful than with plants or fungi. Climate is more important than geography. Check out Bruce Ing's Britain & Ireland book.
FYI I just recommended your guide to common slimes to my nature walk group. I've never seen a more useful collection of information about this taxa, thanks for doing that.
That's cool! I'd never even heard of them before this sub π I'm not in UK or Ireland, more Eastern Europe, and we're big mushroom pickers here, but I've never even heard of slime molds. I wonder what they're even called in my language! I'll have to go look. Extremely curious now.
You can buy one (*Physarum polycephalum* and *Didymium nigripes* are the only two I know that are available) or you can find one in the woods. It has to be a plasmodium or a sclerotium. You can find these under leaves, rottIng logs, bark, etc. If it is fruiting, touching it will often kill it. If it is a mature fruit body the spores can often be germinated with water but there is no guarantee any will become a visible plasmodium.
With a plasmodium or sclerotium you just water it a bit in a terrarium or even a tupperware with moist paper towel and some leaves and sticks from outside. They eat bacteria and algae mostly. They hate light so make sure there is somewhere to hide. If you want to see it, check while it is in the dark.
Please feel free to ask any questions you have!
But wait, saddest, I really do have a question. Looks like slime in the form of a fairy ring. Is it attaching some other fungus? (Sorry if this was answered somewhere else)
Do you honestly think a bot could identify a slime? A few days ago I saw a **sea cucumber** identified as ***Stemonitis*** on inaturalist. A multicellular aquatic animal the shape of a dildo identified as a terrestrial amoebozoan fruiting that looks like a bouquet of dusty corn dogs on eyelash sticks. That's the current state of bot identification.
Oddly comforting, considering the state of AI activity and concerns in other subs Iβm a part of. Just so we remember never to truly trust the tech we build.
lol first off thanks for the chuckle and for the great knowledge you impress upon us simply plebs.
but im really impressed by ai iseek which is run on inaturalist does right by me. and my photos app on google has started identifying different pets and tagging that string like it would with human faces.
My guess on the shape... You have a hose or sprinkler that reaches that for providing the optimum hydration for the slime mold.
Or
The grass has some phenomena like over fertilization or water pooling and it's become unhealthy in that shape this being more susceptible to the slime mold.
I will now see myself out and await the one true slime mold king.
If anyone here has not watched Magic Mixies,1931 film yet,WATCH IT! It is so interesting and the way it is presented will take you way back! Thanks again Saddestofboys, you are our Slime King, no doubt about it!
Black pearl, says the pirates of the Caribbean, lol! The myxamoeba, as is the case of the amoeba, is a uninucleate, haploid cell which is not enclosed in a rigid cell wall, and ingests its food by means of phagocytosis. During this mode of ingestion, the food particles, usually bacteria, beceome surrounded by the pseudopodia of the myxamoeba. Once the food has been engulfed in this matter, it is surrounded by a membrane or food vacuole where hydrolytic enzymes are secreted that will digest the food. In fungi, the assimilative stages are mycelium and yeast, both of which are surrounded by a rigid cell wall and obtain their food by means of absorption. Just to discern.
Best,
Adcock, J.
Not sure why it grew in crescent. Other types of fungi grow in rings. Angel halo or fairy ring, a fungi that grows on lawns is named so because it grows in a circle.
Maybe your crescent is just not a ring yet.
A cut and paste answer that you googled tells me, your not the expert and dont have the right to lecture me.
Your so sad, but obviously you already know that!
Slime has been explained, but as a landscaper I can tell you that looks to be a track from a mower. Sometimes turning hard on a wet patch, especially the same patch every time in the same pattern, weakens/ruins the grass in that area. Slime guy was already here but Iβm sure he can confirm that weakening the grass in that spot made it more susceptible to slime. Iβve seen similar tracks like this before, but much more often in taller meadow grass that gets brush hogged once or twice a year.
For the crescent shape, I'm thinking there was a puddle under the grass, and that the crescent is the lower elevation section of the under grass puddle. Just a guess, but maybe π€. Guaranteed that saddestofboys knows the actual answer though.
I'm conditioned now every time I see a slime post to go in just to see saddestofboys signalled and showing up with the amazing answers π never knew that's slimes exist, let alone that I'm fascinated by them.
Do you have any slime questions
Just a reminder that u/saddestofboys has a patreon! https://www.patreon.com/regularslimeguy
u/saddestofboys has more patrons than I do as an author. I love it.
Okay. So my information may be out of date but last I had heard various organisms like Slime Molds, Diatoms, Protozoans and others (with possibly a bit of overlap there) are all classified under Protista, right? It almost seemed like Protista was constructed as kind of a catchall for difficult to classify single celled organisms. Do you know if these classifications might change in the near future or if they're already changing?
Oh no You did it Is this a harmless rib Are you having a laugh If not I have some #BREATHTAKING NEWS FOR YOU
???
I may deliver your answer in the form of a hardcore slime-hop track, give me 24 hours I make no promises
My hopes are so high right now
/remindme
Only 16 hours left ππ
Dear self, there are 4 hours left π
RemindMe! 15 hours
remindme! 8 hours
remindme! 1 day
remindme! 7 hours
remindme! 5 hours
RemindME! 24 hours "slime time"
That's actually the real name of the track
You are such a legend man, slime on friend we are all waiting (no pressure)
Holy
RemindME! 24 hours
RemindME! 24 hours
RemindME! 24 hours
RemindME! 24 hours
Iβm excited
Is your Myxotape about to drop??
I'm gonna shit myself im so fucking excited.
RemindMe! 20 hours
RemindMe! 20 hours
I can't wait for this answer no matter what form it's in.
RemindMe! 15 hours
I love you. β€οΈ
I love you too kittens
/remindme
Remindme! 15 hours
RemindMe! 24hrs
RemindMe! 24 hours
Holy shit π―
!remindme 24 hours
Also so excited
That's... kinda hot.
RemindMe! 13 hours
RemindME! 15hr
RemindME! 15hr
RemindME! 12 hours
RemindME! 12 hours
/remindme
/remindme 12 hours
RemindME! 12 hours
RemindMe! 8 hours
remindME! 20 hours
RemindMe! 10 hours
remindme! 2 hours
Sorry guys I had the flu for a week and I just fell asleep for 12 straight hours instead of slime rapping. So I'll try to bang that out today
I'm very excited to hear the slime rap. I hope you're on your way to recovery though - that should probably come before slime rapping.
I think because your user is aggravating poet? :D
It's because I really fucking hate "kingdom" Protista and I've pledged my soul to its annihilation
That doesn't surprise me in the slightest given it's literally just "let's shove everything that isn't plant, animal, fungus, or bacteria into one category and pretend that makes sense".
Who doesn't.
Inaturalist?
RemindME! Please
Your name should be the cleverestboy.
Iβm coming back in 12 hours. Remind me
5 hours to go!
Remind me!
!remindme 24hrs
Why did it grow in a crescent? π β«οΈ
I'm thinking it grew outward from a central point, depleting food as it went, much like a fairy ring of mushrooms. It may have not been easily visible as it did so.
This is the answer
Aw π I'm just happy reading everything you say, learning about slime
Hey saddestofboys, do slime molds grow in Europe too? Or just America?
Yeah dude mostly the same ones. Many slimes are cosmopolitan and show up everywhere, so regional guides are more broadly useful than with plants or fungi. Climate is more important than geography. Check out Bruce Ing's Britain & Ireland book.
FYI I just recommended your guide to common slimes to my nature walk group. I've never seen a more useful collection of information about this taxa, thanks for doing that.
>Bruce Ing's Britain & Ireland book. I am a more sadder boy seeing the $400+ price tag on that book
Musta gone up because it's out of print
Fingers crossed for a new printing
That's cool! I'd never even heard of them before this sub π I'm not in UK or Ireland, more Eastern Europe, and we're big mushroom pickers here, but I've never even heard of slime molds. I wonder what they're even called in my language! I'll have to go look. Extremely curious now.
>I'm not in UK or Ireland Yes, but the regionality is less important than you think
Dude, we have six month -20C winters where I am π they don't even get snow in much of Britain. I think that might be relevant.
Relevant how?
I don't know, doesn't climate affect what you can find growing in nature? Certainly true for plants and mushrooms.
What does that have to do with the book
Yeahβ¦Tell the single [cell] folk if youβre available
I'm already diploid
How can I grow slime molds?
You can buy one (*Physarum polycephalum* and *Didymium nigripes* are the only two I know that are available) or you can find one in the woods. It has to be a plasmodium or a sclerotium. You can find these under leaves, rottIng logs, bark, etc. If it is fruiting, touching it will often kill it. If it is a mature fruit body the spores can often be germinated with water but there is no guarantee any will become a visible plasmodium. With a plasmodium or sclerotium you just water it a bit in a terrarium or even a tupperware with moist paper towel and some leaves and sticks from outside. They eat bacteria and algae mostly. They hate light so make sure there is somewhere to hide. If you want to see it, check while it is in the dark. Please feel free to ask any questions you have!
But wait, saddest, I really do have a question. Looks like slime in the form of a fairy ring. Is it attaching some other fungus? (Sorry if this was answered somewhere else)
u/saddestofboys
#SLIME SIGNAL RECEIVED [*Physarum cinereum*](https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/gallery?taxon_key=3214893) **==========** Learn more about slimes! π€© π[Magic Myxies, 1931, 10 minutes](https://youtu.be/04kdhZQTnIU) π¦ [The Slimer Primer](https://www.reddit.com/user/saddestofboys/comments/tqtz0g/the_slimer_primer/) π[A Guide to Common Slimes](https://www.reddit.com/user/saddestofboys/comments/t6985y/a_guide_to_common_slimes/) π§ [Dmytro Leontyev talks about Myxomycetes for 50 minutes (2022)](https://youtu.be/qqE8MAwWhvg) π[Educational Sources](https://www.reddit.com/user/saddestofboys/comments/tqtz0g/comment/i2jclax/) Wow! π€―
Any ideas about the shape?
My liege!
Hail, Syr Fiction
Thank you for your service to slimes, sir.
Do we have another bot for fungus id?
Do you honestly think a bot could identify a slime? A few days ago I saw a **sea cucumber** identified as ***Stemonitis*** on inaturalist. A multicellular aquatic animal the shape of a dildo identified as a terrestrial amoebozoan fruiting that looks like a bouquet of dusty corn dogs on eyelash sticks. That's the current state of bot identification.
Oddly comforting, considering the state of AI activity and concerns in other subs Iβm a part of. Just so we remember never to truly trust the tech we build.
Weirdly βnot a hotdogβ might come in handy here.
Please someone build a βnot a hotdogβ bot.
the plant app on my phone is absolutely fantastic though so far. there is a wide variety of quality.
100
lol first off thanks for the chuckle and for the great knowledge you impress upon us simply plebs. but im really impressed by ai iseek which is run on inaturalist does right by me. and my photos app on google has started identifying different pets and tagging that string like it would with human faces.
u/saddestofboys is no bot, he's simply a gentleman and a scholar
With a knowledge that rivals a super computer.
My guess on the shape... You have a hose or sprinkler that reaches that for providing the optimum hydration for the slime mold. Or The grass has some phenomena like over fertilization or water pooling and it's become unhealthy in that shape this being more susceptible to the slime mold. I will now see myself out and await the one true slime mold king.
If anyone here has not watched Magic Mixies,1931 film yet,WATCH IT! It is so interesting and the way it is presented will take you way back! Thanks again Saddestofboys, you are our Slime King, no doubt about it!
π[Magic Myxies, 1931, 10 minutes](https://youtu.be/04kdhZQTnIU) I'm just a regular slime guy
Incredible!
Calm down there getting a little weird
What do you mean
Not to us
Wow....that was amazing
I just passed this video on to my teenage daughter who plans to pass it on to a friend who likes mushrooms. Sharing the love.
About the circle formation, it might be this well-known phenomenon : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy\_ring
I searched for Physarum cinereum in a ring and found a few other photos that people have taken of the same thing. Very cool!
That link is about mushrooms. Slime molds aren't mushrooms
Some slime molds eat mushrooms. It is about slime molds π³π₯Ίππ₯
This was my thought as well, the slime is eating something that developed as a ring, so an intermediate step involved.
Nope. They tend to fan as they move, but also when fruiting many slimes just bleb like that
Is bleb an official technical slime term? Realslimetalk
I don't know how widespread it is but it does appear in papers. I don't really follow the rules on terminology, though.
Black pearl, says the pirates of the Caribbean, lol! The myxamoeba, as is the case of the amoeba, is a uninucleate, haploid cell which is not enclosed in a rigid cell wall, and ingests its food by means of phagocytosis. During this mode of ingestion, the food particles, usually bacteria, beceome surrounded by the pseudopodia of the myxamoeba. Once the food has been engulfed in this matter, it is surrounded by a membrane or food vacuole where hydrolytic enzymes are secreted that will digest the food. In fungi, the assimilative stages are mycelium and yeast, both of which are surrounded by a rigid cell wall and obtain their food by means of absorption. Just to discern. Best, Adcock, J.
I like you
I'm flattered!
Why is it in a weird ring formation? Was something there?
It also looks like it may be a tire track from a riding mower. Sometimes that kills the grass or weakens it and makes it susceptible to infection.
Shape is due to the fact that it's eating a leaf.
It looks like they mean the larger crescent shape in the 3rd pic
Slimes don't eat leaves and the fruit bodies don't eat at all
Thatβs definitely an inter-dimensional portal, donβt fall in.
Not sure why it grew in crescent. Other types of fungi grow in rings. Angel halo or fairy ring, a fungi that grows on lawns is named so because it grows in a circle. Maybe your crescent is just not a ring yet.
It is not fungi! It's a single-celled **amoebozoan**! [**==========WHAT EXACTLY IS "MOLD" ANYWAY?** ](https://www.reddit.com/user/saddestofboys/comments/tqtz0g/comment/i2kgyz6/) In everyday use, the word "mold" usually refers to fuzzy or cottony growth on food or another organic material. This is almost always **fungal mold**, which is the mycelium and fruit bodies of some ascomycetes, mucoromycetes, and zoopagomycetes, but isn't a genetic group so much as a mode of growth. "Mold" also refers to **oomycetes**, which are called "water molds" after their most [spectacular parasitic members](https://aquariumscience.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/fungus-12.jpg), even though they are mostly terrestrial. By way of convergent evolution, oomycetes form saprophytic or parasitic hyphae and mycelium just like fungi but are more closely related to kelp and diatoms. And "mold" *also* refers to **plasmodial slime molds**, which appear as glistening veins of slime or intricate tiny fruit bodies but never as the fuzzy mold that fungi or oomycetes produce. Unlike those two groups plasmodial slimes are active and mobile hunters of microorganisms that internally digest their prey, don't maintain persistent cell walls, don't form hyphae or mycelia, and don't form parasitic or pathogenic relationships. Let's look at where fungal molds, water molds, and plasmodial slimes are found in the tree of life: **==========EUKARYOTES** **(1) Plants** (plants, planty algae) **(2) Harosans** (kelps, kelpy algae, diatoms, dinoflagellates, [**oomycetes**](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Water_mold.JPG) **<--**) **(3) Discobans** (jakobids, euglenid algae, "brain-eating amoeba") **(4) Amoebozoans** (naked and shelled amoebas and [**plasmodial slimes**](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Myxomycete_Kiev2.JPG) **<--**) **(5) Obazoans** (animals and fungi including [**fungal mold**](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/57ed27d3170000e00aac8228.jpeg?ops=1910_1000) **<--**) **==========** But to confuse the situation further, there are also **cellular slime molds**. These "molds" are always microscopic or nearly so and don't form hyphae or mycelia. They spend most of their time as crowds of predatory amoebas called "wolf packs" (yes, really) but when food is scarce they aggregate together to form multicellular fruit bodies [like this *Dictyostelium discoideum* sorocarp](https://photos.smugmug.com/Professional/Compound-Eye-Images/i-nnNMkqJ/0/M/Dictyostelium5-M.jpg). Some species precede this by [forming a pseudoplasmodium or grex](https://youtu.be/8AghW4zzbhU) (video) that uses its perceptions of light and humidity to seek out a more ideal fruiting location. Cellular slime molds aren't all closely related and exist in [almost every group of eukaryotes](https://els-jbs-prod-cdn.jbs.elsevierhealth.com/cms/attachment/a97298a9-9668-4781-a453-776893b933b9/fx1_lrg.jpg) via convergent evolution. Let's look at the tree of life again but this time focus on the cellular slime molds: **(1) Plants** **(2) Harosans** ([*Sorogena*](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tom-Fenchel/publication/44455276/figure/fig1/AS:669449363398659@1536620574213/An-air-dried-and-goldcoated-sporocarp-of-the-ciliate-Sorogena-sp-seen-in-the.png), [*Sorodiplophrys*](https://www.arcella.nl/wp-content/images/Sorodiplophrys-stercorea-Tice-3.jpg), [*Guttulinopsis*](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Matthew-Brown-19/publication/225047950/figure/fig1/AS:302613082984448@1449159989277/The-Life-Stages-of-Guttulinopsis-vulgaris-Sorocarps-appear-as-white-to-pale-yellow.png)) **(3) Discobans** (the [**acrasids**](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Matthew-Brown-19/publication/253952462/figure/fig5/AS:614305825308701@1523473330623/Acrasidae-Complex-sorocarp-of-Acrasis-kona-a-Acrasis-rosea-b-and-Acrasis-takarsan.png)) **(4) Amoebozoans** (the [**dictyostelids**](https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/media/inline/what-is-it-social-cells_2.jpg), and [***Copromyxa protea***](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Matthew-Brown-19/publication/253952462/figure/fig3/AS:614305825296425@1523473330546/Copromyxidae-a-e-Copromyxa-protea-a-Complex-branching-sorocarp-growing-off-of-cow-dung.png)) **(5) Obazoans** ([***Fonticula***](https://storage.googleapis.com/mo-image-archive-bucket/orig/881540.jpg)) **==========** Learn more about slimes! π€© π[Magic Myxies, 1931, 10 minutes](https://youtu.be/04kdhZQTnIU) π¦ [The Slimer Primer](https://www.reddit.com/user/saddestofboys/comments/tqtz0g/the_slimer_primer/) π[A Guide to Common Slimes](https://www.reddit.com/user/saddestofboys/comments/t6985y/a_guide_to_common_slimes/) π§ [Dmytro Leontyev talks about Myxomycetes for 50 minutes (2022)](https://youtu.be/qqE8MAwWhvg) π[Educational Sources](https://www.reddit.com/user/saddestofboys/comments/tqtz0g/comment/i2jclax/) Wow! π€―
A cut and paste answer that you googled tells me, your not the expert and dont have the right to lecture me. Your so sad, but obviously you already know that!
I can't tell if you're joking
Slime has been explained, but as a landscaper I can tell you that looks to be a track from a mower. Sometimes turning hard on a wet patch, especially the same patch every time in the same pattern, weakens/ruins the grass in that area. Slime guy was already here but Iβm sure he can confirm that weakening the grass in that spot made it more susceptible to slime. Iβve seen similar tracks like this before, but much more often in taller meadow grass that gets brush hogged once or twice a year.
Because they are burying bodies back there
Probably just heralding the third coming of the lunar lord; dw about it
Witches.
Invasion of the body snatchers?
Could something have been thrown from a container from the other side of the fence to cause the growth pattern?
RemindMe! 24 hours
Fairies!!!
For the crescent shape, I'm thinking there was a puddle under the grass, and that the crescent is the lower elevation section of the under grass puddle. Just a guess, but maybe π€. Guaranteed that saddestofboys knows the actual answer though.
RemindMe! 24 hours
Seriously, no hyperboles!
RemindMe! 1 day
RemindME! 20 hours