Link to my slime mold article on Medium.com

Slime Mold in my compost

The First of Them, Is It the Last of Us?

Slime Mold

I have been waiting for slime mold for a long time. In high school, I read a Scientific American article on slime mold and tried to grow it as an extra-credit project. I did not fail the class, but I did fail to grow slime mold.

Slime mold is a fascinating creature. It is rare in Southern California. It is not fungi or mold, a plant, or an animal. Also, the name “Slime Mold” is a terrible description; the name is used to identify multiple, similar, and yet wildly different organisms. In this article, I am talking about members of the Myxomycete, a phylum in the Protista.

Myxomycetes start life as either microscopic amoeba-like or protozoa-like with a flagella single cell. It is too small to be seen without a microscope. Like a human egg or sperm, they are haploid; they carry half of the parent's genetic information. When they find another haploid cell and the conditions are suitable, they will fuse into a single cell with a single nucleus, called a zygote.

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