Slime mould fruiting bodies, SEM

This image is part of the feature Slime Moulds

Credit: EYE OF SCIENCE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Caption: Slime mould fruiting bodies. Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of the fruiting bodies (sporangia) of the slime mould Metatrichia floriformis. Each sporangium grows on a stalk or stipe (brown) from the main body of the organism (not seen). The spores are coloured orange. Slime moulds are not fungi, but a separate group with complex life cycles. Metatrichia is plasmodial: the spores pass through a free-living single-celled phase before fusing in pairs and growing into a plasmodium. This is a mass of protoplasm with multiple nuclei. It can be centimetres across and is capable of slow movement to find food. Magnification: x10 at 6x6cm size.

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Keywords: bark, coloured, eumycota, fruiting bodies, fungal, fungi, fungus, metatrichia floriformis, mold, mould, mouldy, mycetozoa, mycology, myxomycete, myxomycota, nature, naturemycology, plasmodial, reproduction, scanning electron micrograph, sem, slime mould, sporangia, sporangium, spore, spores, sporocarp, sporocarps, sporulation, trichia, wood

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