Slime Moulds

My interest in fungi has led to the discovery of another group of organisms which inhabit the same ecosystem - the slime moulds. It's a horrible name for what are obviously fascinating beasts which exist as single cells for part of their lifecycle but can then come together to form larger and quite complex bodies - which is what we see here - and these, amazingly, can move, as if they are a single organism, to reproduce and search for food.

It just happens that last week's New Scientist carried the winning photograph in the magazine's recent Photography Awards, of a slime mould taken by Barry Webb. The winning picture is on NS's website here, 

The slime moulds we have been finding locally come in interesting colours, including pink, orange, yellow, grey and white, so they're not exactly shy. However, identifying them is difficult, adding to the frustrations I enjoy when trying to name the fungi we've found.