Described as ‘ephemeral, unpredictable and intriguing’, acellular slime moulds are strange, minute beings found feeding on bacteria, algae and fungi, working their way silently through soil and vegetation in search of food.
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At this month’s Royal Society of Tasmania Northern Chapter lecture on Sunday, naturalist Sarah Lloyd spoke on her seven-year interest in acellular slime moulds in the forests around her home.
“When people ask me if they are alive, I answer ‘perhaps’,” she said.
The moulds are tiny, just millimetres wide in some instances, living off eucalyptus seeds and spawning wide colourful masses of spores.
Ms Lloyd has more than 1400 examples, and showed attendees a slideshow of her most recent collections – bright orange, deep purples, pale yellows and blues, all within minute proportions and all feeding silently off decaying natural lifeforms.
She began studying the moulds in 2010, and her collection now has more than 10 per cent of the world’s known species, including a newly identified Alwisia lloydiae.