365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Monday, June 1, 2020
Ceratiomyxa After The Rain
Day 232: A rather dramatic electrical storm and hard rains kept me from checking up on the Ceratiomyxa until a full day had elapsed. As I had expected, the colony had begun to deteriorate, and even the associated Lycogala was merely a shadow of its former self. The slime mold had had its day. Its population had come together to feed and breed, and its constructs...the pillars and towers which were its signature structure had fairly shone in the peak of its glory. Perhaps it was already beginning to collapse at its core when I first observed it; in any event, it did not weather the storm well, and its protist civilization collapsed, leaving behind an amorphous mass of confused and decaying cells. Those which have survived and the offspring of those which bred successfully must now retreat into the protection of their deteriorated stump, there to try to recover until they can rebuild.
Hang on a minute...did you just see a metaphor run through here?
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