Day 222: Today, botanists and others honour the birthday of Carl Linnaeus, father of our current system of binomial nomenclature, so although I praise him today, I'll be back to damning him and the breed he spawned the very next time I discover that some plant/lichen/fungus I've found has been renamed since whatever field guide I have open was written. Taxonomy! I love it because it classifies things and makes sense of them. I curse it because it's a fluid science, and what we thought we knew yesterday may prove to be wrong tomorrow, necessitating reclassification and an update to the nomenclature.
Linnaeus' original system consisted of three kingdoms: animals, plants and minerals. Anything non-living fell into the latter category. We have since refined his "Systema Naturae" and today use six kingdoms (five if you're European) to incorporate all living things: Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, Archaea and Bacteria. Slime molds were originally classified under Fungi, but when it became apparent that they were capable of locomotion, communication and cooperation, scientists kinda had to take a step back to ask themselves a burning question: "Just exactly what the hell is this thing, anyway?" Fungi don't go hunting for food. These guys do, gathering together to move in response to a chemical signal as a mass, albeit slowly, to a new location. Originally, it was believed that portions of the organism were dying off and being replaced by new growth, but by using time-lapse microphotography, true motion of individual cellular entities was observed. This behaviour seemed more suited to the category of "animal" than to "fungus" or "plant," and thus a new kingdom was designated to include them and similar oddities: the protists.
How fast can slime mold move? If you were to set your cell-phone camera down beside a colony and record it for a period of 24 hours, you might see them advance or retreat several inches, "creepy" in the literal sense of the word. You might see them send out "fingers," scouting parties looking for a new food source. Or, as my botany partner Joe discovered when he went back to try to find them again 24 hours after this photo was taken, they may have done an Elvis and left the building entirely. And you thought "Little Shop of Horrors" was funny!
5/27/18 - My identification of Leocarpus fragilis has been confirmed by Angela Mele, slime-mold expert and artist.
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