Do you know slime mold?

Do you know slime mold?  It’s not a mold (fungus). Slime mold is a primitive creature but amazingly it is an all one single cell with multiple nuclei. They creep through the forest. If you would research a damp dead log laid down in the forest at  rainy season, you might find slime mold. It's very characteristic. 

The weird form shown below is known as a 'plasmodial' slime mold.　

Once it appears on the surface, it changes drastically from an amoeboid state to a fruiting body in a few days. No matter what we do, we can't stop the metamorphosis.

The slime mold in the above photo entirely changed to the fruiting body shown below in the next day. This is Fuligo septica f. flava. I'm sorry to say that it's difficult to culture artificially this slime mold.

However only small kinds of slime mold can be artificially cultured. They can grow on agar plate or wet kitchen towel placed in a plastic container, usually digesting oatmeal granulas. If you repeat replanting, an amoeboid state will be kept for a long time.　

In November this year I found a yellow plasmodium of slime mold on a dead branch in the vacant lot near my home where branches from pruned garden trees have been piled up since about 3 years ago. The blue arrow shows slime mold.

　I was a little surprised to see slime mold still alive even though the temperature was so low. However I instinctively thought that this slime mold could be cultivated. 　

I ripped off the bark from the branch on which the slime mold was creeping and placed them on a wet kitchen towel in a container. Blue arrows show the slime mold.

Furthermore, I placed an oatmeal granul as a bait on it. Slime mold will be moving around and foraging for food.

The slime mold moved from the bark to the oatmeal granul as I expected. So, I transferred this slime mold to an agar plate.　What I would like to note here is that slime mold will change into fruiting bodies if they are cultivated in a bright place or not being fed enough.

In addition to oatmeal, this slime mold can also consume even dried shiitake mushrooms. In fact, this is the favorite food of this slime mold. Slime mold swarm around pieces of dried shiitake mushrooms.

In order to know what kind of species this slime mold is, it is necessary to make it form a fruiting body. In general, if the slime mold is left alone without feeding under dime sunlight, it will produce fruiting bodies in a few days. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of fruiting bodies it will produce.