'Oozing' mass 'just appears' in Aussie garden — so what is it?
The Gold Coast resident had never heard of the creature – until it suddenly appeared on his veggie patch.
An oozing, moving mass "just appeared" in a Queensland resident's veggie patch this week, leaving the keen gardener a little stunned and very confused.
On Tuesday, the puzzled Gold Coast man posted photos of the beige blob sprawled across his plants online in a bid to solve the mystery.
"This just appeared in my garden — I assume it's a fungus..." he said in a Facebook group dedicated to identifying different types of fungus found in Australia. However, his quest to identify the strange growth opened up a whole new world of wonder.
What is the peculiar mass?
Compared to "cheese sauce" and "dog sick" by some on social media, the mass was quickly discredited as a fungus, despite its deceiving name.
"It's a slime mould," an expert member of the group confirmed. "Not fungal but still welcomed here."
Speaking to Yahoo News Australia on Friday, University of Sydney's Entomologist Tanya Latty said the slime mould seen in the pictures appears to be Fulgio septica — otherwise known as 'dog's vomit', however it is hard to know for sure.
"Slime moulds are not really fungi — they are gigantic, single celled organisms with complicated life cycles," Professor Latty said.
"This picture likely shows a slime mould in its big blob-like life stage (called a 'plasmodium'). It will eventually develop into spores that have distinctive shapes depending on the species. So a conclusive identification would require careful examination of the spore-bearing structures."
Slime moulds are also neither an animal or a plant. They sit firmly in the 'protista' kingdom, which basically means scientists don't really know how to categorise them.
Slime mould has no brain but can move
Professor Latty told Yahoo News that "despite lacking a brain, slime moulds are capable of solving mazes and making complex decisions".
"They feed on bacteria and fungi and are generally harmless to humans," she added.
Speaking to the ABC late last month, the entomologist said when slime moulds are hungry they can move about five centimetres per hour, with the aptly named 'dog's vomit' able to grow up to one-square-metre. They are also not harmful to animals.
Interesting facts about slime mould:
There are over 900 species of slime mould
Slime mould love to eat uncooked porridge oats
Slime mould release airborne spores like fungus to reproduce
'Big oozy thing'
The creatures are incredibly common and grow just about anywhere, Professor Latty further explained, but do show signs of preference when it comes to environment. "They hate light...they hide from light," she said, saying they prefer to live in leaf litter.
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"We just go out the building at work, get some leaf litter, put some water on it and watch it for a while. Most of the time a slime mould will crawl off...they're everywhere," she said, revealing she kept one as a 'pet' after becoming intrigued by the organisms.
Slime mould can survive from one season to the next by releasing fungal-like spores, making them incredibly resistant to decimation. "It's this big oozy thing that just creeps around engulfing anything it can get its pseudopods on," Professor Latty said.
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