Fungi Friday: MEET THE VOMIT

Mucilago crustacea spread on the twigs, stems, and leaves of the plants that grow by the side of the road isn't a pleasant sight. Especially when its growth reaches the decaying phase.

It looks like vomit. Or feces covered with mold. Or some similar material. In any case, nothing inviting.

In its prime, the thing looks slightly better.

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Still not a beauty, but yeah, slightly less repulsive. Kind of.

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It starts forming as a translucent, jelly-like slime ...

... and then turns into this yellowish mass that looks like fish roes or something like that.

Mucilago crustacea is a slime mold from the Didymiaceae family. This lovely little organism is commonly (and quite appropriately) called dog vomit slime mold or dog vomit fungus. I mean, it does look like vomit that could be dog vomit. That's why I said "appropriately." It has nothing to do with the dogs, otherwise. It can't harm the pets, nor are they attracted to this thing.

In this shot, you can see a good example of an early growth stage. From the base to the top of the twig, the slimy mold gets from translucent matter that looks like frost and water to a more defined sponge-like thing.

I didn't have the macro lens with me so I couldn't get extremely close to the protagonist of this post. This is the most macro-looking shot I could get without specialized equipment. The insect shown resting on the Mucilago crustacea is a fungus gnat. A small nematoceran fly from the Sciaridae family. Can't tell you the name of the species.

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These vein-like structures look pretty alien and creepy.

In this photograph, they look like a grid on which the rest of the tissue grows and develops.

Despite what its common names suggest, Mucilago crustacea isn't a fungus. Unlike "normal" fungal molds, slime molds aren't part of the fungi kingdom. But I put them in this post because most people (including me, until today), experience them as some kind of fungal growth. And then, there are those misleading common names that make the slime mold look less out of place in a post like this. A post that is my contribution to #FungiFriday by @ewkaw

Fortunately, I also found some typical mushrooms beside the vomit that is neither vomit nor a fungus on the 3rd of January, when all these photographs were taken. In the following picture ...

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... you can see the same mushroom photographed in a different light. I used the flash for this enlargeable shot that emphasizes the structure of the gills. You can enlarge the picture by clicking on it. This is the Lepista sordida, a species that often produces fruiting bodies in winter here in my area. Five or six meters further ...

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... I came across another, considerably smaller mushroom. This fruiting body was in an early stage of its development. Can't tell you what mushroom is this. Tricholoma terreum maybe? I don't know. Maybe. It has some similarities with what I found on the Internet about that species but I'm still far from being sure.

This photograph was taken on my walk across the juicy green lawn by the side of the road ...

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... back to the vomit.

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Another thing that makes these repulsive slime things kinda suitable for the Fungi Friday community is the fact that they were considered part of the subkingdom Gymnomycota in the Fungi kingdom not so long ago. Nowadays there is a consensus about them being Mycetozoa and part of the Phylum Amoebozoa in the Protist kingdom. Which means that these aggregations of cells that do produce spores are more closely related to the amoebas than to any kind of fungus. Life on Earth is amazing even when it looks like a piece of shi ... I mean, vomit.

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In this wide shot, beside the Mucilago crustacea in the foreground, you can also see a bit of the scenery. All the photographs were taken in a place called Puntizela. A stretch of seaside terrain near the village called Stinjan. Only a couple of kilometers from the coastal suburbs of the city of Pula, and thirteen to fifteen kilometers from Medulin, my hometown.

The following links will take you to the sites with more information about the protagonists of this post. I found some stuff about them there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucilago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold
https://www.first-nature.com/fungi/lepista-sordida.php

AND THAT'S IT. AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.

THE END