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THE BLOB
It's not a plant, an animal or a fungus? It has
no mouth, but it can find and digest food. It can
move and also heal itself if it is damaged and it
can learn to go around a barrier if necessary.
It is in the news this week as specimens have
been specially grown in petri dishes and put
on display at the Zoological Park in the Paris
Museum of Natural History. This particular
"Blob" is said to creep along at about one and a
half inches (4 cm) and prefers a meal of oatmeal.
It's nickname is the "Blob," but it is actually a
slime mold called Physarum polycephalum.
There are more than 900 species of slime
molds and you may be lucky enough to spot one
growing in damp woodland on bark or leaf mold.
Photo
credit:
Bioformatic-P-Polycephalum
Even more
oddities and
curiosities from
around the world!
Of f icialKidsMag.com • JANUARY 2020 • 47
