Black Pearl Slime Mould
We were out for a family hike on the canyon view trail and were not far from the lower canyon bridge. We were halfway up the steep part of the trail when my grandson spotted these. I was not sure if this was a slime mold or some sort of insect egg. I took some photos and headed home to see what I could learn. There was very little written about this slime mold beyond its name. What info I did learn was from Project Noah
Black Pearl Slime Mold as its name states, is a slime mould. Slime molds are at the moment classified as Protozoans, slime moulds were once thought to be fungi because they produce spores in the same way as fungi.
Slime molds live independent lives, but during food shortages, they will come together and form into an enormous single cell called a slug. Slime moulds have traits similar to both fungi and animals. Their life cycles can be very strange as they go through different stages. When times are good, they live independently, but if conditions change and the food supply disappears or conditions get too hot or dry or any other big change, the individual cells will begin to gather together to form a single structure. The individual cells will send out a chemical signal directing all of them to gather together.
This new structure is the slug, so-called because it really resembles a slug. The slug will creep along seeking out food. When the communal cells sense that they’ve come across more food, the slug stops cells in the mould and now begins to do different things. Some cells will go about creating an anchor, others begin creating a stalk with a spore cap, while others become spores in that cap.
When a drop of rain hits the spore cap hard enough, the spores will fly out. They are a bit like plant seeds. Each of them will become an independent cell when they land and begin a new life cycle. Slime molds were at one time thought to be fungi, but unlike fungi, they can move almost like an animal making them very different from fungi. Slime moulds are made up of individual cells that can come together to form a single mass. They can be orange, red, yellow, brown, black, blue, or white and are usually quite bright.