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Physarum Polycephalum

Algae and Protists

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Physarum polycephalum, commonly called the many-headed slime mold, is a single-celled organism of the Amoebozoa found in cool, moist, shaded habitats such as forest leaf litter and rotting logs across temperate regions worldwide. Despite its plant-like name it is not a fungus or plant but a plasmodial slime mold, spending most of its life as a single giant cell containing many nuclei that spreads in a network of tube-like veins searching for bacteria and other microbes to engulf. It has become a notable subject of scientific study for its ability to solve maze-like navigation problems and approximate efficient network layouts without any brain or nervous system, despite being a single cell.

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