Fungus Like Protists | Plasmodial Slime Mold / Myxomycota |

Plasmodial slime molds Plasmodial slime molds represent a vast diversity of morphologies. While still a plasmodium, they can be difficult to distinguish. The Plasmodium In their feeding stage, myxomycetes form one large amoeba called a plasmodium with many nuclei and no cell wall. This plasmodium moves over damp, decaying material looking for bacteria (and sometimes fungi) to engulf and digest. When it dries out or runs out of food, it begins to make fruiting structures called sporangia (sporangium, singular). Inside these sporangia, the diploid nuclei will undergo meiosis and haploid nuclei will be walled off to make spores for aerial dispersal. Dispersal by spores, heterotrophism, and glycogen as a storage carbohydrate originally classified this group within Kingdom Fungi, but this is the end of the similarities. The spores have cell walls made of cellulose, like plants. When these spores land, they will germinate into haploid cells with two flagella (called swarm cells) or amoebae that will fuse together to form a diploid plasmodium.