slime mold

Definition of slime mold

: any of a group (such as Myxomycetes) of organisms formerly held to be lower fungi but now often considered protists that exist vegetatively in usually moist habitats as mobile plasmodia and reproduce by spores

Examples of slime mold in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Duffy and his colleagues are using drone imagery to study seagrasses along the North American Pacific Coast, where new outbreaks of slime mold disease, possibly fueled by warming ocean temperatures, threaten large seagrass meadows. — Shane Gross; Text By Katherine Harmon Courage, Smithsonian Magazine, "Prairies of the Sea," 18 Nov. 2020 Their presence seemed to be a consistent aspect of slime mold behavior. — Quanta Magazine, "Out-of-Sync ‘Loners’ May Secretly Protect Orderly Swarms," 21 May 2020 In the lawn, Bell said, slime mold looks almost like grayish black beads. — oregonlive, "Sneaky slime mold may be creepy, but it’s harmless to plants," 4 Aug. 2020 Earlier this year, researchers discovered a 100-million-year-old slime mold and a lizard leg perfectly preserved in amber from a tree in Myanmar. — Fox News, "99M-year-old 'hell ant' trying to eat a cockroach found entombed in amber," 11 Aug. 2020 The gross-looking substance known as slime mold shows up on mulch and lawns, but is harmless to plants. — oregonlive, "Sneaky slime mold may be creepy, but it’s harmless to plants," 4 Aug. 2020 The scientists still need to definitively prove that the slime mold gains a fitness benefit from this bet-hedging strategy. — Quanta Magazine, "Out-of-Sync ‘Loners’ May Secretly Protect Orderly Swarms," 21 May 2020 No — that’s just another interesting sighting called slime mold. — Howard Garrett, Dallas News, "What’s that in your garden? Strange sightings are usually no big deal," 17 June 2020 Different strains of the slime mold had different set points. — Quanta Magazine, "Out-of-Sync ‘Loners’ May Secretly Protect Orderly Swarms," 21 May 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'slime mold.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.