Slime Moulds

Slime moulds are a diverse group of organsims that are neither plants, animals nor fungi. They spend most of their life as microscopic single-celled amoeboid individuals in leaf litter, soil or decaying wood, and when conditions are right they reproduce and form a larger, spreading structure called a plasmodium, which in turn produces fruiting bodies (Secretive Slime Moulds: Myxomycetes of Australia By Steven L. Stephenson). 

• Examples of the plasmodium stage can be viewed here: Myxomycete plasmodium
• Examples of the past plasmodial stage (including fruiting bodies) can be viewed here: Myxomycete - past plasmodial stage

For beginners, here is a “A Key to Common Genera of Slime Moulds” written and illustrated by Peta McDonald, a Melbourne primary school teacher: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/A_Key_to_Common_Genera_of_Slime_Moulds.pdf

A more technical key can be found in “Taxonomic Keys and Plates from The Myxomycetes”, a book by George W. Martin and Constantine J. Alexopoulos: https://www.myxotropic.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/MyxoKeys.pdf

For a photo gallery of slime moulds from around the world check out this one on a Spanish myxomycetes website: https://www.myxotropic.org/galeria/

Further information: 

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold
• The weird world of slime mould - Australian Geographic

Slime Moulds

Moderators

Announcements

NatureMapr 2025 partner update presented to Commonwealth DCCEEW

New feature: special fields for collections

Temporary disruption to attributes

New feature: duplicate a sighting

Discussion

Species Richness Score (SRS)

137

Top contributors

• Teresa 125
• trevorpreston 39
• TimL 17
• Mike 8
• MichaelBedingfield 7
• mahargiani 6
• KenT 5
• Bushrevival 4
• CathB 4
• JohnC2 4

Top moderators

• Teresa 183
• MichaelMulvaney 78
• Heino1 54
• Heino 12
• Pam 7
• MichaelBedingfield 4
• Csteele4 3
• Heinol 3
• trevorpreston 2
• HarveyPerkins 0