h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Slime Moulds - A87967822
Author: SashaQ - happysad and 'slightly mad' - U9936370

Slime is a popular toy for children these days, but here is an Entry about a type found in nature!

Very interesting.

At university, our freshman biology professor had us create our own taxonomy for the plants and animals we observed in the laboratory sessions. I put the slime moulds under 'animals' because of their locomotion. I think he was amused. He was a plant physiologist.

Philip K Dick's novel 'Clans of the Alphane Moon' features a character named Lord Running Clam - a sentient Ganymedean slime mould with telepathic powers.

Thanks DG!

I hope you didn't lose credit for amusing the biology professor. I didn't study slime moulds in the lab, as we focused on insects, but I do see the scrambled egg slime occasionally in local parks.

"a sentient Ganymedean slime mould with telepathic powers" - I can imagine such a thing after having watched the videos of slime moulds

No, the prof was a gem with a sense of humour. He'd worked in Southern California, where, as he told us during his office hour chats, he had been plagued by filmmakers. You see, it was the fashion then to make 'science fiction' movies by blowing up ordinary insects and plants and trying to make them scary...

He said they wouldn't believe him that lichens wouldn't make good movie monsters until they spent about three days with his collection, trying...

You have to hand it to Philip K Dick, though.

Anyway, cool entry as is.

That's good - I once lost credit when a teacher asked us to design an experiment but didn't mention that we could imagine doing the experiment in an industrial laboratory so we didn't have to squeeze everything into a test tube...

Yes, I like lichen, but it's more suited to books than film indeed!

bob commented over here F22163774?thread=8323747 so I updated the Entry accordingly

I saw an interesting article recently which said that slime moulds can solve mazes although they are not intelligent. It might be worth looking into this and seeing if it is suitable for including in the entry.

Ah, yes - I have seen that. I agree it would be good to add something about how they respond to their environment and can find the shortest routes between two food sources - I will look into that

I have updated the Entry quite a bit, so I added some headers too

Coincidentally I met a former student of Bruce Ing today - she told me about the expeditions they all went on to find fungi and slime moulds of all shapes and sizes (mostly microscopic)

Still looks good!

I would change:

the Myxomycetes ('true slime moulds', or 'plasmodial slime moulds') grouping

to:

the Myxomycetes grouping ('true slime moulds', or 'plasmodial slime moulds')

You should then omit the comma after it.

Thanks Gnomon I made that change

This Entry was much more interesting than I thought when I read the title.

Thanks Tav Good point - I have added a subtitle

Love the new title. When Tav said that, I thought: 'Slime Moulds: More Interesting Than They Sound'.

Thank you

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