The Sublime Intelligence of Slime Molds
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SLemon molds can be more dazzling in appearance than their name suggests. Like mushrooms, these organizations that are difficult to classify reproduce with spores, and to release these spores, they cultivate fruit bodies in a wide range of shades and textures. Some look like peacock disco-right balls on stems; or red popsicles, gold and miniature orange. Others, like that Badhamia utricularis Photographed by Andy Sands, look like tiny mandarins or juniper berries.
Most are tiny, at least in the early stages of life. To find them, Sands, a United Kingdom-based photographer, advises grass-budding photographers to do as he does: “Get a pair of solid reading glasses, a magnifying glass and a flashlight, and crawl under holly bushes for hours.”
The scholarly manuscripts of ancient China describe a species as “demon exclusions”.
Slime molds are protisists – a meli -melo of eukaryotic organizations that are neither animals, plants, nor mushrooms. Their spores germinate to form cells of the amoebus or flagelladed type, which can merge into zygote, and finally develop by mitosis into a giant and creeping cell with several nuclei, called plasmodium. Depending on the species, only one plasmodium can cover an area of more than 108 square feet, the size of a small bedroom.
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The many forms and shades of mud molds – there are more than 900 species in the world – have led to an also striking range of common names. Fuligo SeptaFor example, forms a thick and shiny yellow mass, which the Aboriginal peoples of Mexico called “the excrement of the moon”. The scholarly manuscripts of ancient China, for their part, describe what is probably the same species as “Demon exclusions”. Today, it is more widely called the slime mold “dog vomit” or “blurred-egg”. Other species have won such charming nicknames such as “wolf milk”, “chocolate tube” and “Bretzel”. An Arkansas -based researcher made suggest that a friend suggested that the whole cryptic group would be much better described as “underlime Mussels. »»
These remarkable creatures make more than accumulate nicknames. They also question conventional scientific wisdom that an organism must have a central nervous system to learn and show intelligent behavior. A well -studied species, yellow Physarum Polyceptam, Can find the most effective path to food through a labyrinth. Various researchers also placed small piles of food on tokyo, Canada, United Kingdom and Spain flat cards and have shown how Physarum Navigate between the hubs in a way that reflects the modern transport networks of these regions or follow the comparable efficiency routes.
In another experience, researchers presented the species with various food mixtures. THE Physarum The specimens first explored each mixture, then constantly chose the one with the balance of the most ideal nutrients. In other experiences still, the body used its own slime paths to remember where it had been. Physarum Can also get used to stimuli, as a new chemical product, occurring more carefully and slowly through a surface where the chemical product is present but learns to ignore it over time if repeated encounters lead to any sick effect. A used mud mold can even transmit what he has learned to another plasmodium by merging with.
It is difficult to say if these experiences confirm that slime molds are sensitive. But that calls into question the need to sort all organizations in tidy categories.
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This story originally appeared in biographicalAn independent magazine on nature and regeneration powered by California Academy of Sciences.
A naturalist for life, Andy Sands has been photographing fauna for over 25 years. His passion is British fauna, and he particularly likes to photograph birds in the song, the little mammals that we rarely see, as well as insects and other invertebrates, documenting their life cycles and their behaviors. Being a naturalist in experienced terrain allowed him to take intimate portraits of wild animals in a natural environment. In recent years, it has largely focused on the cover of mushrooms and slime molds.
