False Puffball, Caca de luna

Description:

Slime mould or Myxogastria. It is not a fungus! The slime mould has two phases to its life cycle: an actively feeding plasmodial stage and a reproductive sporangial stage. The picture shows the reproductive sporangium or aethelium The plasmodial phase is mobile and is multi-nucleate, formed by the fusion of single cells and typically amoeboid in its movements, through cytoplasmic streaming. The sporangial or aethalial phase of this slime mould is spherical, elongate or globular, 50 to 80 mm, and is at first highly glutinous in appearance, resembling small slug eggs. Later a smooth white and silvery surface develops, which eventually splits to expose a brown spore mass beneath. An aethalium is a term relating to slime moulds, referring to the relatively big, plump, pillow-shaped fruiting body, formed by the aggregation of plasmodia into a single functional body. The spores are brown and dispersed by wind and rain until only a few delicate threads of the sporangium remain, resembling soft foam padding

Habitat:

Spotted on a dead fallen poplar

Notes:

E. lycoperdon is named "caca de luna" or "Moon's excrement" by the locals in the state of Veracruz in Mexico. There, the very young aethalia are collected, fried, and eaten. Camera Model: NIKON D300. Exposure Time: 1/640 sec.; f/13; ISO Speed Rating: 800. Focal Length: 300.0 mm.