Trichia varia a Common Slime Mould

[Harold Gough]

This species is recognisable, easiest in the white stage, by its resemblance to a tiny domestic bayonet light bulb.

The images show the white stage on 15 October and the yellow stage on 4 November. It has yet to release spores form most of the fruiting bodies (sporocarps), which are about 1mm high.

Stereos will be uploaded separately.

The first 2 images:
Olympus EM-1, (aperture priority), Olympus m4/3 30mm f3.5 ED macro, hand-held. the firs was daylight, the second flash.

The other images
Olympus EM-1 (manual mode), Laowa 25mm f2.8 2.5x-5x ultra-macro at f8, twin TTL flash hand-held. they have been cropped moderately.

Harold

[Luv2shoot]

Great macro shots. Photo number two looks like a bunch of eggs!

[Harold Gough]

Great macro shots. Photo number two looks like a bunch of eggs!

Thanks.

The early, white stage of some species are very similar to slug/snail eggs and to some insect eggs.

On Friday I collected some such. They were much smaller than the usual slug eggs but of the size of Shield-bug eggs. They could also have been a slime mould.

They were on the inner surface of loose bark on rotten wood. I brought them home for further study. Yesterday I found some of them rolling around in the container, not possible with a slime mould, which would grow out of the substrate. That they are all crowded together, touching, suggests a bug to me but I will have to wait and see.

Harold