New Slime Mould Species Discovered in Slocan Valley

0:00It's April 25th, I'm Cory with the story. This is Canada News Today, driven by AI. Amateur Mycologist Tyson Ellers just made history in the Sloan Valley by discovering a brand new slime mold species called Spyro Mixa Slokeninces. This beige, ringed beauty popped up on a log he's checked for decades. First in November 2021, with just a few tiny fruiting bodies each, about 5mm tall. A few months later in spring, he spotted a much bigger patch on the exact same log, covering 10 to 20 square centimeters. He teamed up with a partner for DNA testing, and boom, they confirmed it was unknown to science, with unique ornamentation that didn't match anything in the records. Slime molds are these wild single cell produce that live in damp forest floors, munching bacteria and fungi. They stay microscopic most times, but link up into visible slimy masses. Ellers is straight obsessed, hoarding thousands of specimens at home, and says few folks

1:02worldwide even hunt these things down. The team named it after the Sloan Valley spot, following science naming rules, and published defined in the journal, fungal systematics, and evolution. Wild part its whole known population is just that one log. Ellers keep scouring the woods, but hasn't seen it since 2022. He's got a book on Slime molds dropping in 2027, so the hunt rolls on.