This is something I learnt about back in first year, and I thought was pretty awesome, so, having written this up previously on a personal journal, I'm reposting it in edited form to hopefully give this new blog a good start :)
Name: Dictyostelium dicoideum
What is it?: Dictyostelium is a unicellular organism... most of the time. It lives in soil, feeding on bacteria which themselves feed on decaying leaf matter (yum). Slime moulds were formerly classed as fungi, since both reproduce by releasing spores. Unlike fungi, however, these single-cell amoebae are able to move around.
Name: Dictyostelium dicoideum
What is it?: Dictyostelium is a unicellular organism... most of the time. It lives in soil, feeding on bacteria which themselves feed on decaying leaf matter (yum). Slime moulds were formerly classed as fungi, since both reproduce by releasing spores. Unlike fungi, however, these single-cell amoebae are able to move around.
Image: Dictyostelium labelled with GFP, by Richard Firtel, University of
California,San Diego. From the website of Eduardo Kac.
