Slime Mould (Reticularia lycoperdon)

Walking through Troserch Woods yesterday I came across this very odd species which looked exactly like moist putty oozing from the bark of a very old and dead tree, alongside the Morlais River.

Thanks to the Fungi section of BirdForum website, I now know that this is Slime Mould Reticularia lycoperdon previously classified as Enteridium lycoperdon. Slime Moulds are a strange class of amoeboid protozoa, previously thought to be fungi but now known to be Myxomycota, which are organisms which prey on microbial food webs. This particular species is a bacterial predator and usually very tiny and unlikely to be seen, but this particular stage of it’s life cycle is a fruiting body known as a sporangium. This is a globular formation which swells up to around 50-80mm (this was near to the top end of that scale), whereupon it hardens and then eventually splits to release brown mass of spores. Trichia, a member of the BirdForum community mentions that it usually likes to exit the wood via insect holes.

I’ll try to return and take a few more pictures as it matures, to see what happens.