Protist
14 protist organisms and their business parallels
Arcyria denudata
Arcyria denudata produces some of the most visually striking structures in the slime mold world—brilliant red or pink fruiting bodies that expand dram...
Bioluminescent Dinoflagellate
When waves crash on certain tropical beaches, the water glows blue. This bioluminescence comes from dinoflagellates—single-celled organisms that flash...
Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa
Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa challenges slime mold classification by producing spores externally on branching, coral-like structures rather than internally...
Dictyostelium discoideum
Dictyostelium discoideum spends most of its life as thousands of independent single-celled amoebae, each pursuing its own food supply. When food runs...
Echinostelium minutum
Echinostelium minutum represents the extreme miniaturization of slime mold development. Its fruiting bodies are barely visible to the naked eye—under...
Fuligo septica
Fuligo septica earns its vivid common name—dog vomit slime mold—from its appearance during the plasmodial stage: bright yellow, foamy masses that appe...
Hemitrichia serpula
Hemitrichia serpula forms fruiting bodies that connect into meandering networks across their substrate—pretzel-like loops and connections rather than...
Lycogala epidendrum
Lycogala epidendrum looks nothing like stereotypical slime molds—its pink, spherical fruiting bodies (aethalia) resemble tiny puffballs or small round...
Malaria Parasites
Each Plasmodium falciparum genome contains approximately 60 var genes, yet only one is expressed at any time. As the human immune system develops anti...
Physarum polycephalum
Physarum polycephalum has become famous for solving computational problems without a brain, neurons, or any central processing unit. This slime mold e...
Polysphondylium pallidum
Polysphondylium pallidum develops through the same aggregation process as Dictyostelium but produces dramatically different fruiting bodies—delicate s...
Slime Mold
Physarum polycephalum challenges categories. Individual cells function independently, foraging through soil. When resources deplete, cells aggregate i...
Stemonitis fusca
Stemonitis fusca transforms from a flowing plasmodium into precisely ordered clusters of tall, chocolate-brown columns with remarkable developmental p...
Zooxanthellae
Zooxanthellae are photosynthetic dinoflagellates of family Symbiodiniaceae that live within the tissues of sea anemones and reef-building corals. They...