Snowy landscape and Yellow Slime Mold

 It snowed a little last night, but it cleared up in the morning, so I went for a walk in my favorite woods near my hometown. (January 4th, 2025)

This photo shows a weird yellow slime mold sticked to the back of a fallen tree trunk. I will explain later.

By the way, the trees around the irrigation pond are lightly dusted with snow.

No one had ever walked this narrow path in the forest before me.

On the way, I saw a yellow creature that was stuck to the back of a dead tree trunk.

Actually, I have already noticed something yellow on this tree trunk late November last year. And I identified this is colloquially known as a Pretzel Slime Mold (Hemitrichia serpula), one of the commonly known slime molds (Myxomycetes).

 Its Japanese name is Hebi-Nuka-Hokori.　Hebi means a snake in Japanese.　

 In the case of Pretzel Slime Mold, both capillitia and spore mass are yellow. So, it is distinguishable from similar Myxomycetes in this respect. 

To be honest, I posted the photos on this blog last year with the title "Behold The Amazing Pretzel Slime Mold". But at first, I could hardly recognize it as Pretzel Slime Mold. 

Then, what is it? It looks like a yellow labyrinth, isn't it? What is a yellow narrow string?

Please look at the part below of this photo. Yellow yarn got tangled up? 

These yellow yarns that were originally stuck in the 'yellow labyrinth' seemed to drop out from them.

 When I emailed the above photos to my friend, he commented as follows. "The bottom part of the curved peridium of this Myxomycetes remains like a wall, and at first glance it looks like different Myxomycetes". "I think the thread-like looking parts are capillitia, but even the broken fruiting bodies look like little works of art". "Perhaps that is the charm of the Myxomycetes."

Below picture was taken last November compared with a Japanese coin. At this time, capillitia did not drop out and looked like numerous snakes.

To elaborate further, this slime mold can be generally likened to a winding yellow 'hose' filled with yarn-like structures (capillitia). But the upper wall of the 'hose' has collapsed for whatever reason such as maturity, so yarn-like structures have ended up being exposed outside. This is my speculation, though.