A slime mould - Stemonitis fusca
Introduction
The photograph on this page of A slime mould - Stemonitis fusca by Lairich Rig as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
A slime mould - Stemonitis fusca
Image: © Lairich Rig Taken: 11 Aug 2013
The small stalked structures are Image However, the main subject of the present picture is what could easily be mistaken for clumps of eggs. These are in fact the slime mould species Stemonitis fusca, beginning the change from its plasmodial stage (the mobile, slime-like feeding phase) to its spore-bearing stage. The individual round white blobs become elongated, borne upwards on thin stalks that develop at the same time, to form a tuft of cylindrical sporangia (spore-bearing structures). Less than a day later, these ones looked very different: Image The habitat is a piece of rotten wood.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
55.969189
Longitude
-4.589569