Unknown moss?

From a trip to a bird sanctuary in east Texas.

Type of Critique Requested

  • Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
  • Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
  • Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
  • Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.

Specific Feedback and Self-Critique

The striking color of the moss against the dark log and texture caught my eye.

Technical Details

Focus stacked from three images.

Not a moss, a slime mold! Specifically Fuligo septica also known as scrambled eggs. Slime molds are single-celled organisms that normally lead solitary lives, but when conditions are right they mass in the millions and produce this odd structure called a plasmodium. Researchers think it’s because a great food source was identified and everyone came to the feast. Some plasmodia are for spore production and release. Terrific find. Great textures huh? You could tighten the crop on any one of the main areas for a closer look.

1 Like

Thanks Kristen, I had never seen this before and didn’t know what it really was. I saw a lot of it in the swamps as we walked through and have several more photos of it, the color is so outstanding.

I’ve just begun to see and identify slime molds in the field. Most of the fruiting bodies are not anywhere this large and need a hand lens to be seen. This one is also called dog vomit slime mold because when the plasmodium breaks down it gets brown and goopy. Ugh. But they’re really interesting organisms - animals that reproduce with spores like mosses, ferns and mushrooms.

Here is a link to some I found in my yard last year -

Garry, such a cool yellow color. Thank you @Kris_Smith for the explanation of this funky mold. I would like to see a tighter crop to make the slime even more of a star in this photo. Great find and capture!

Garry: A good find indeed. Don’t have much to add to the previous comments. One tiny nit is the yellow is a bit hot, especially on the upper cluster. Well seen and captured. >=))>

Bill, thanks. I’ll correct that.