Creature 176: Physarum polycephalum

Can solve mazes without a brain.

Description:
Physarum polycephalum is a slime mold, much like Fulgio septica or Stemonitis fusca.

Like other slime molds, it has a mobile plasmodium phase in its life cycle which it enters when it is searching for food. Despite the fact that they have no brains or nerves or no cellular specialisation, these slime molds are capable of solving maze problems. Several experiments have been done showing their ability to arrange themselves in the shortest shape between 2 food sources. They have also been shown to solve networking problems between as many as 36 points with comparable efficiency to humans. We are not entirely sure how they manage to achieve this.

Physarum polycephalum can also survive in a dormant phase as a dried out husk.

Distribution:
Physarum polycephalum can be found all over the world in cool moist areas with low sunlight.

Classification:
Kingdom: Amoebozoa
Phylum: Mycetozoa
Class: Myxogastria
Order: Physarida
Family: Physaridae
Genus: Physarum
Species: Physarum polycephalum

Image Links:

http://genome.wustl.edu/genomes/detail/physarum-polycephalum/

Video Links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czk4xgdhdY4

Creature 139: Stemonitis fusca

No this is not an alien

Description:
Stemonitis fusca is a slime mold, and if you haven't heard of slime molds you should read my post on the dog vomit slime mold to learn a bit about this bizarre group of organisms. When it enters it's reproductive phase it looks quote bizarre.

Stemonitis fusca lives in rotting wood slowly consuming the decomposing plant matter. When conditions are right the form visible bubble like structures which fuse together. These the grow into elongate tubes. Then thin wiry stalks lift the whole structure up giving it as much height as possible so the slime mold can disperse it's spores. It will change color quote dramatically while reaching ripening. Watch it happen here:

Like most slime molds the individual cells are capable of living apart and then fusing together into a single multinuclear cell which forms the fruiting body.

Distribution:
Stemonitis fusca can be found on rotting wood anywhere in the world.

Classification:
It may look a bit like a mushroom, but I cannot emphasis enough that these arr not fungi. They were once classified as fungi, but have subsequently moved to the Kingdom Amoebozoa.

Kingdom: Amoebozoa
Phylum: Mycetozoa
Class: Myxogastria
Order: Stemonitida
Family: Stemonitidae
Genus: Stemonitis
Species: Stemonitis fusca

Image Links:

http://www.pouet.net/topic.php?which=1724&page=73

http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/pictures/showphoto.php/photo/93656/size/big/cat/

Video Links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUXrx7Fw6sg

Creature 77: Fuligo septica

A shape shifting monster in your garden.

Fuligo septica may sound like a fairly disgusting name for a species, but its common name, the Dog vomit slime mould sounds even worse. They may look quite disgusting,  but they are actually very cool creatures.

Description:

The slime moulds have several phases to its life cycle. It life cycle starts off as an single cellular organism much like an amoeba. They reproduce asexually for a while while mostly eating bacteria. When conditions are right these amoeboid can breed with each other. The result of this breeding is a multi nuclear blob without any cellular division which can either be thought of as a single cell with multiple nuclei or multiple cells with a fused cytoplasm. This monstrosity can grow meters in size as it consumes micro-organisms in its path. The freakiest thing about it is that it is capable of self movement. O.k. it is not very fast, sometimes it can achieve speeds of over 1 mm a second, but that's still pretty weird.

When the yellow blob has consumed all the food in the area it transforms. At this point the slime mould will form reproductive bodies which shoot out spores in order to colonise areas with more food. It is in this stage that the dog vomit slime mould is normally noticed as a bright yellow or greyish slimy blob. There are some really interesting fruiting bodies, some of which are mobile but we will talk about these in later posts. Dog vomit slime moulds are believed to use beetles to spread their spores.

Like animals and unlike fungi slime moulds lack chitin in their cell walls making the shape of their cells less rigidly defined.

Distribution:

Dog vomit slime mould is found throughout the world and are particularly common in garden compost.

Classification:

The slime moulds used to be considered to be a group of fungi, mostly because the fungi used to be classified by the absence of characteristics which is always a bad way to classify organisms. They are considered to be more closely related to Animals than fungi and are a member of the Amebozoa Kingdom.

Kingdom: Amoebozoa

Phylum: Mycetozoa

Class: Myxomycetes

Order: Physarales

Family: Physaraceae

Genus: Fuligo

Species: Fuligo septica

Image Links:
http://moremoth.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/yellow-slime-mould.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuligo_septica#mediaviewer/File:Fuligo_septica_bl2.JPG