2. A bright yellow slimy blob is commonly seen in the summer on mulched flower beds. SLIME MOLDS

3. The yellow blob turns gray, becomes hard, then breaks down into a brown powder.

4. People complain that the yellow blob looks like dog vomit and that the brown powder stains sidewalks. What is this stuff?

5. It’s a slime mold!

6. The body of a slime mold is a single amoeba- like, multinucleated cell called a plasmodium.

7. Decaying leaves, bacteria, protozoa, and wild yeast are engulfed by the a slime mold as it moves along the ground.

8. After a heavy dew or evening fog, the plasmodium will slowly creep up onto the leaves of grass or low-growing shrubs as well as onto pine bark and other mulches.

9. The plasmodium rapidly dries in the morning sun into a crust containing numerous fruiting bodies.

10. Here are more slime mold fruiting bodies.

11. Surviving spores absorb water, germinate and release a single motile swarm spore. As the crust disintegrates, clouds of dust-like spores are dispersed by air currents, water, mowers, pets and foot traffic.

12. Two spores then fuse to form an amoeba-like cell which gives rise to the multinucleated plasmodium and the whole cycle begins all over again.

14. Superorganism It looks like a single being, but it’s a society of former individuals... The slime mold!