Many-headed Slime Mold
This little, yellow blob was one of many that were on the slime mold. They looked like little drops of béarnaise sauce.
This enigmatic slime mold moves using shuttle streaming, which is characterized by rhythmic back-and-forth flow of the protoplasm. Incredibly, this slime mold exhibits intelligent characteristics similar to those seen in single-celled creatures and social insects. For example, it is able to solve the shortest path problem - When grown in a maze, P. polycephalum will retract from everywhere in the maze, except the shortest route connecting the food sources, thus producing efficient networks by getting to the food using the shortest route. Amazing!
When I saw this slime mold, I was amazed that it actually appeared to be pulsating - if you watch closely over a period of several minutes, you can see it moving. I wish I had thought to take video or had some "slime" lapse images, but I was too in awe of this slime while watching it to remember that my camera could take video ;). It was THAT cool.
''Physarum polycephalum'', literally the "many-headed slime", is a slime mold that inhabits shady, cool, moist areas, such as decaying leaves and logs. Like slime molds in general, it is sensitive to light; in particular, light can repel the slime mold and be a factor in triggering spore growth.
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