What can be achieved without a brain!

This is the Egg-shell Slime Mould - Leocarpus fragilis.


Slime moulds are neither plant, nor animal nor fungus but belong to a Kingdom all of their own, the Protista. They spend most of their lives as independent, single cells, invisible to the naked eye, dining on fungi and bacteria. However, when times are hard they swarm and aggregate into an enormous multi-nucleated single cell or a mass of individual cells which moves slowly across the ground in an organised and cooperative fashion. Eventually they sporulate and produce millions of spores, which go on to produce yet more slime moulds. This they do without a single neurone between them. Maybe we should get them to sort out Brexit for us!