Gross!

Not gross at all, these are frog eggs and relatively freshly laid. Our frogs (wood frogs and spring peepers) just started singing last week as well as laying eggs. Yeah, spring is starting.

Sorry Mark,

not even close....not even in the same taxonomic order.

Slime mold with spirochetes


Paul

Paul, you BUM! I gave it away with the Order clue..................... I should have said wrong genus...or wrong species.

Don't tell me you're a biologist studying EUMYCETOZOANS????

This forms on my horses' manure piles on very dewy mornings in the Fall.
Anybody interested in this stuff, go to this web page
http://slimemold.uark.edu/educationframe.htm

Here is a lovely photo of some of the slime on our "poop"

You might think you gave it away but I knew right away what it was. My head is full of useless information. I think the title gave it away more. Slime mold is gross.

Paul

Paul, Birds of a feather. I have an enormous amount of useless info in my head, too!

Useless information is the only kind worth keeping in your head. I like the close up of this stuff a lot more than the wider veiw. Yuck!

For those who love TMI. ..I e-mailed a photo of this to Katie Winslett working on the Arkansas study. So, Paul, you are not right,but I sure thought you were. Obviously neither one of is is a mycologist!

Here's what Katie said....
I'm happy to look at these pictures for you. What you have pictured here is not, actually, a slime mold. It almost certainly a zygomycete fungus in the genus Pilobolus. It's a genus of fungi quite commonly found on dung worldwide. Interestingly, the black top is the sporangium and it is launched by turgor pressure that builds in the yellow part.

Whew, aren't you glad you know what this disgusting thing is! Now we can all sleep better tonight!

You are a sick woman Lucy. I like that! Very good entry and info. Yours are never dull.


Dan

Well I still feel like a winner I spelled spirochetes right on the first try. The important thing too which I would argue to the Supreme Court is the photo when posted was believed to be slime mold, which isn't a mold at all but a variety of fungus with no fruiting apparati ( This is correct it's the plural of appratus just like hippotami ) like mushrooms. I say we take a sample and have a DNA test done. Not on me the yellow gross thing in the image. Thinking of exploding spirochetes spreading spores due to excessive turgidity seems rather even more gross.

Paul

Paul,
I agree that you won....
Actually, the technical term in the South for this beauty...is scrambled egg fungus! Really!
And thanks for the complement, Dan...I like to keep everyone on their toes!
Also, Paul, you're invited any September to "hand sample" this specimen for its DNA test!!! Because you have to get Really close to fully appreciate it...

I LOVE slime molds--they are just too cool! Used to see lots of them on the West Coast, along with Banana Slugs...

Lucy,

Have to admit that you have found beauty in the most unusual of places and it's truly been fun with your post and for that I'm going to break a rule I made for myself. You get the smashing beer mugs award.

Paul

Thanks to everyone for the fun banter.

Stan, you should run this as a weekly challenge a couple of times a year. It was fun! It would be a shame to let all that excess knowledge go to waste!

And Paul --2 beer mugs for you, too!