Originally posted by Philoslothical I could be wrong, but I think that's a slime mould! Lucky!
I'll second that identification. It may be a slime mold with the totally fitting common name "scrabbled egg slime."
I have to add a caveat: scrambled egg slime (AKA "
dog vomit slime") prefers cooler weather = early Spring or Fall.
Two other candidates that look something like the goo pictured:
1) spreading yellowtooth, which is a mushroom not a slime mold, but it generally grows on the surface of dead logs.
2) many-headed slime, which has highly branched extensions with roughly spherical globs at the end (source of the name).
AN ANECDOTE ABOUT many-headed slime, here copied verbatim from my field guide:
“A very common related species, Ashy
Physarum (
P. cinereum),created a stir in Texas when people thought it was a blob from outer space. When the fire department hosed it down, it split apart, and the moisture provided it with the means to spread and grow substantially larger. People demanded that the governor call the National Guard, but a scientist dispelled the fear by identifying the foreign substance as a common slime mold.”
Perhaps the Texas slime species should be called “chupacabra vomit slime.” (see my sign-off below)