Althouse: Fungus of the Day.

June 16, 2024

Fungus of the Day.

21 comments:

Meade said...: Happy Fungthers Day!; 6/16/24, 9:42 AM
n.n said...: A nuclear bloom over a photovoltaic blight with winds blowing over discombobulated turbines scalping the environment.; 6/16/24, 9:50 AM
Temujin said...: Unable to identify the fungus. The best thing I could come up with was that it's Fuligo septica, which is a species of slime mold (nice!). It is commonly known as 'dog vomit slime mold' due to its yellowish, vomit-like appearance. I don't think it's accurate, but you gotta love the name.

Seems like something we see or use everyday should be named 'Dog Vomit Slime Mold'. Maybe a band. I remember a band called Diarrhea Planet. Dog Vomit Slime Mold is much more offensive than that. It'd make a great band name.

"Mom. Dad. Dog Vomit Slime Mold is playing at the Ubiquitous Arena. I want to go with my friends. Can I?" Not exactly Taylor Swift material.

Anyway...Happy Father's Day out there to all ye Fathers.; 6/16/24, 9:58 AM
Quaestor said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/16/24, 10:02 AM
Narr said...: As a fun guy and father, I wish all you other fun guy fathers a great day.; 6/16/24, 10:03 AM
R C Belaire said...: If anyone cares to learn about the forest ecosystem, including the role of fungi, read "Finding The Mother Tree" by Suzanne Simard. Excellent. Detailed.; 6/16/24, 10:11 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I've blogged about dog vomit slime mold a few times on this blog — e.g., here.

I agree it looks like that.; 6/16/24, 10:13 AM
Ann Althouse said...: The website to identify mushrooms — champignouf.com — says: "I think it's: fuligo septica
Or perhaps armillaria mellea , fuligo , boletus edulis , or agrocybe praecox
or something totally different!"; 6/16/24, 10:16 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I think fuligo septica is obviously correct; 6/16/24, 10:17 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Happy Father's Day to all the Althousian fathers.

For more about Griffin Dunne and his book (unusual for Althouse to post twice about something) check out NPR'S Fresh Air's interview with the Actor, Producer and Director.
I had to get pass the interview stand-in for Terry Gross. You don't realize how good an interviewer is until somebody else does it poorly in their place. Terry Gross has a small footprint a light touch.

Still, it's worth listening to. It's the second half of the show.; 6/16/24, 11:11 AM
Iman said...: Beware teh fungus amongus!; 6/16/24, 11:47 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Maybe the Democrats can nominate that nice looking fungus as President- can't be worse that Joe Biden.; 6/16/24, 11:50 AM
NKP said...: Happy Dad's Day to all y'all.

My two sprouts grew into better human beings than me and that fills me with joy. I coulda done better but, at least, I didn't totally screw it up :-); 6/16/24, 12:00 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Btw. Something called Renaldo and Clara went up on YouTube claiming to be a Bob Dylan film. It’s 3 and a half hours long.; 6/16/24, 12:53 PM
rehajm said...: wearehereweareherewearehere; 6/16/24, 1:10 PM
John henry said...: Wasn't dog vomit Howard sterns boss at WNBC?

John Henry; 6/16/24, 1:55 PM
Iman said...: I hear ya, NKP. Backatcha!; 6/16/24, 3:30 PM
Quaestor said...: "The website to identify mushrooms — champignouf.com — says..."

The alternative species suggested at that site are all fungi but look nothing like this specimen. All "slime molds" aren't even in the same top-order clade beneath Eukaryota as true fungi, plants, or us, so we should invent a better common name than slime mold.

Members of the class Myxogastria (snot stomach) which contains our lifeform of the day, are frequently described as giant amoebae, but that's a far-fetched notion. An amoeba, regardless of size, is a unicellular eukaryote protist. It has a single, well-defined nucleus containing its genetic material, like all other eukaryote cells, whereas "dog vomit" is acellular. Its structure doesn't conform to the typical cell. Nor is it like a bacterium, with its genetic molecules suspended anywhere within the cell wall. The "dog vomit" has a eukaryote nucleus, but not one -- hundreds, thousands, maybe millions. The rules that define a cell just don't apply, so it's not one cell or many cells, it's no cells. Instead, it is a plasmodium, highfalutin word that doesn't mean very much. Is it one organism or a colony? Probably neither. Wrap your head around that.

There are other "slime molds" that live as individual, free-moving, differentiated cells that clearly fit the definition of amoebae -- they've each got a nucleus, but their other organelles come and go as needed, like their pseudopodia. However, given the proper stimuli, they can merge into a single undifferentiated mass called a slug (in honor of the disgusting mollusks that show up on the bathroom tile at three in the morning). The slug encloses all the nuclei of the individual amoebae that united to form the slug, still distinct and well-defined, but everything else is merged into the oneness of slugdom like an ashram of microscopic Buddhists.

I recall examining the innards of a termite in a 200-level invertebrate zoology lab through a nifty Zeiss stereo-microscope when something long and slender glided swiftly across the stage. What the hell was that? I blurted out. I tried to describe it to the teaching assistant. Don't worry about it, he said, just keep on task. I think it was a slime mold.

Once merged, the slug moves faster and more efficiently than the formerly individual organisms are capable of. Slugs that encounter other slugs can merge to form a new larger slug, or not. No one can yet account for sluggish preference cascades. When the slug envelopes and digests enough food, bacteria mostly, it goes into its reproductive mode, forming spores that can develop into new unicellular slime mold precursors. However, the spores only contain daughter nuclei of the favored reproductive nuclei of the original slug, the rest are called altruistic nuclei for want of any better term. These code the proteins that form the stalk and shell of the spores, but their DNA is excluded from the spores. What they get out of being in the slug is elusive. Maybe they just enjoy the company. Weird.

The Myxogastrids are apparently descended from the slug-forming slimes, but they've evolved to skip the free-living unicellular stage.; 6/16/24, 5:14 PM
tcrosse said...: In today's Telegraph:
Tony Blair has declared that “a woman has a vagina and a man has a penis” as he questioned why politicians had got themselves into a “muddle” over trans rights.

I suppose this is what the press would call Hard Right.; 6/16/24, 6:59 PM
Meade said...: “like an ashram of microscopic Buddhists.”

Brilliant simile. Made me smile 😊.; 6/17/24, 6:05 AM
amr said...: Yep, this one is "dog vomit"/"scrambled eggs" "slime mold", Fuligo septica; 6/17/24, 8:39 AM