Rascaille Rabbit's photostream  

I was born and raised in Dublin,
Dublin is the home for me.
Come with me,
Dance with me,
In Dublin, Illinois.

Three little flowers heading out for a walk.

Each year in September, biology students bring in apples still attached to small branches from back yard trees. These apples have never been sprayed with insecticides. Over time, we see various insects that emerge from the apples such as coddling moths, pomace flies and apple maggot flies. Sometimes, we have spiders. We watch the population of the pomace flies expand and then decline as they use up and despoil their environment. The apples rot. Then, in February, large slime molds such as this one appear. This year's slime mold has a very thick, pale cream-colored plasmodium that somehow reminds me of a morel mushroom when it bunches up on something. In past years, we have had bright yellow, pale, grey-cream color, and ebony black. A few hours after I took this photo, this slime mold had crawled into the rotted apples and disappeared. It remained hidden all day today. Eventually, if we see it again, we will scrape some off the glass and culture it on wet filter paper with oatmeal for food.

See www.flickr.com/photos/50334717@N00/402977381/

Each year in September, biology students bring in apples still attached to small branches from back yard trees. These apples have never been sprayed with insecticides. Over time, we see various insects that emerge from the apples such as coddling moths, pomace flies and apple maggot flies. Sometimes, we have spiders. We watch the population of the pomace flies expand and then decline as they use up and despoil their environment. The apples rot. Then, in February, large slime molds such as this one appear. This year's slime mold has a very thick, pale cream-colored plasmodium that somehow reminds me of a morel mushroom when it bunches up on something. In past years, we have had bright yellow, pale, grey-cream color, and ebony black. A few hours after I took this photo, this slime mold had crawled into the rotted apples and disappeared. It remained hidden all day today. Eventually, if we see it again, we will scrape some off the glass and culture it on wet filter paper with oatmeal for food.

See www.flickr.com/photos/50334717@N00/402977381/