An inedible raspberry

This afternoon I headed off to the woods in search of fungi. Sadly I found little of interest, which was just as well as my camera battery was as flat as the proverbial pancake. I did find something though that could be brought home to have its portrait taken.

Sitting on an old fallen pine tree,  this is (I think) the raspberry slime mould Tubifera ferruginosa. Slime moulds aren't plants, nor animals, nor fungi, instead they are usually classified as belonging to the Protista.

Slime moulds cells spend most of their lives as independent, amoeba-like cells, dining on fungi and bacteria, but if times become hard they swarm and aggregate into an enormous multi-nucleated single cell or a mass of individual cells which moves slowly across the ground in an organised fashion. These large masses act like giant amoebas, creeping slowly along and engulfing food particles along the way. If a slime mould aggregate is diced up, the pieces will pull themselves back together. The blobs can navigate and avoid obstacles and if a food source is placed nearby, they seem to sense it and head unerringly for it. I am sure that you will enjoy this excellent time lapse clip from the BBC showing a slime mould in action and reproducing!

I gather that slime moulds make interesting pets and so I plan to keep this one to see how it develops.