An international network of/for intelligent organisms

Transparent Physarum?

My physarum should be bright yellow, but it is more transparent. Am I doing anything wrong?

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Andrew Lawson on May 13, 2015 at 15:18

Thanks. I have started it from sclerotium. The colony is about a week old.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sarah Choukah on May 16, 2017 at 1:26

Hi Andrew,

This may be a pretty delayed answer, but I've found Physarum doesn't do well in watery conditions. Just yesterday I tried re-animating a small piece of dried sclerotium in a petri dish where I put too much water in, and the slime mold literally liquefied. Did it look somewhat like this?

I've had this experience before too. It seems there's an optimal environment that's humid, but not too wet to have the slime mold grow in really well.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sarah Choukah on May 16, 2017 at 2:19

Another form of "transparency" I've observed is when the slime mold travels around so fast that it only leaves slimy traces of waste products, as in this picture:

I'm not sure what conditions make it better for it to keep developing its visible plasmodial tubes vs. just exploring around in as minimal a plasmodial body as possible. Perhaps feeding it more regularly (as this reply in a thread seems to suggest) could be a solution: more availability of nutrients should make for stronger, healthier slime mold I guess.