The slime mold posts will continue until morale improves. #slimemold #fungifriends - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

nuiipointer.bsky.social • 17 days ago

The slime mold posts will continue until morale improves.
#slimemold #fungifriends

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Comments

hdez-yt.bsky.social•16 days ago

Since your Bio says you like IDs😅, these are a Trichia genus. To ID the species would need to study🔬 the capillitium (small threads inside) and spores. To my knowledge, It could be T. scabra, T. affinis or T. persimilis, maybe even T. varia, very similar all of them.

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nuiipointer.bsky.social•16 days ago

Good info, and thanks for the microscope images as well! I think that at first I’d have to see them side by side to tell the difference between those hairs. I’m more and more considering getting a microscope for this, because I also want to know!

hdez-yt.bsky.social•16 days ago

Go ahead, if you can, it's an all whole world to discover and enjoy. Although you would need an oil immersion microscope, and they're quite expensive 😥
We were lucky and were lended one

nuiipointer.bsky.social•16 days ago

Oh you can’t just put them under some regular microscope like the ones you use in school? Why? Do these things dissolve in water?

blebleb.bsky.social•16 days ago

You can have a normal light microscope, the ability to use oil immersion comes from an attachable objective lens. Even a regular (brightfield) 40x objective can work, but only for larger features of spores and capilitium.

nuiipointer.bsky.social•16 days ago

Good to know, if I go looking for one I’ll take that into account.

hdez-yt.bsky.social•16 days ago

It's a little more complicated 😅. To really see Fungi/Slime spores properly you need great to enlarge the image at least x1000. Usually you use an x100 special objective that you can immerse in a oil drop over the slide. Less than that is difficult to really discern the details.

regularslimeguy.bsky.social•16 days ago

The spores have an ornamentation unique to Oligonema, and the shape eliminates T varia & T (Oligonema) scabra. It reminds me of the Trichia (O) persimilis SEM below, but I think the peridium & capillitium are too light. Prob not Trichia (O) favoginea because of the shape. My guess is T (O) affinis

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hdez-yt.bsky.social•16 days ago

These were photos of 2 different species, T. affinis and T. persimilis😅
I studied them some years ago and an specialist confirmed the IDs. I posted them just to show the capillitium and spore shapes in these species.

regularslimeguy.bsky.social•16 days ago

I understand now! I am just an amateur but I agree with your ID suggestions. Trichia / Oligonema are a bit jumbled but on the same branch. They are all trichiaceous 😀

nuiipointer.bsky.social•16 days ago

We are ALL trichiaceous on this blessed day.

regularslimeguy.bsky.social•16 days ago

I'm whatever Trichioides iridescens is

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regularslimeguy.bsky.social•16 days ago

Oh good! So I look smart now! Thanks for posting them!

hdez-yt.bsky.social•16 days ago

😅😅

regularslimeguy.bsky.social•16 days ago

But I am not 100% certain

regularslimeguy.bsky.social•16 days ago

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hdez-yt.bsky.social•16 days ago

Haven't actualised the name Trichia to Oligonema yet😮‍💨 (thanks for the reminder)
Like I said, I studied them some years ago and haven't worked with them since that

regularslimeguy.bsky.social•16 days ago

Things are in flux as morphological & molecular data is harmonized & species concepts are reconsidered. Molecular data suggests some Trichia species are more closely related to Oligonema, others to Metatrichia. T varia seems closer to Oligonema, for example.

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karmageddon52.bsky.social•14 days ago

Wonderful snaps!

my-liquid-head.bsky.social•17 days ago

I just don't see that many slime molds around. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough

nuiipointer.bsky.social•17 days ago

What helped me was:
- find a really rotten tree, one where the wood is becoming mush
- carefully check out every part of this tree, especially inside, and the underside close to the ground
- started looking under loose slabs of birch bark on the ground
- look for something yellowish and tiny

my-liquid-head.bsky.social•17 days ago

Ta. Got notes for the next walk out!

regularslimeguy.bsky.social•16 days ago

Go to places near water, after rain, and look at wood so rotten it's wet. You can only find certain species this way but they tend to be the largest, most noticeable, and most commonly encountered. Get a cheap lens and flashlight or use your phone. Spend time just staring at dead wood and wait

nuiipointer.bsky.social•16 days ago

That’s definitely what I do! Nobody wants to go with me to the forest anymore because I can spend half an hour studying every cm of the same fallen tree. So now I just go alone and take my time for the slime.

regularslimeguy.bsky.social•16 days ago

From the shape I wonder if these might be Oligonema schweinitzii or O intermedium. I think it's definitely worth looking under the microscope

nuiipointer.bsky.social•16 days ago

That third one, on the leaf, may also be a different one because it was in a different place. The first two photos are from the same cluster. The fourth one I’m not sure, I’d have to check the location metadata.

regularslimeguy.bsky.social•16 days ago

Was the leaf touching the rotten wood? My understanding is common trichiids are rarely on leaves, but I'd have to look through a few books for the details

nuiipointer.bsky.social•16 days ago

(And afterwards I put them back together and replaced them on the ground where I found them. I try to be minimally disruptive to this small ecology.)

nuiipointer.bsky.social•16 days ago

There were two leaves on the ground next to the wood. When I picked one of them up, it turned out there was trichia between them.
I moved these leaves because they were in a dark nook where I couldn’t photograph them.

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