Can anyone tell me what this slimy, jelly-like substance is that was found on grassland around the silt lagoons? There were several pieces of this in the vicinity and each patch is about 5cm in diameter. Answer next week....
Did anyone get the answer to this one?....If you said 'I don't know', then you were in fact correct!
This substance is known by a number of names including star-jelly, star-slime, astral jelly and astromyxin (among others) and no one actually knows exactly what causes it - in fact there are a number of different theories, some or all of which could be true!
Reports of the substance appearing randomly, in a variety of different habitats and from different continents, date back to the 14th Century and in folklore it was thought to have come from space, perhaps deposited during meteor showers. However, there are now a number of scientific explanations for what the substance might be -
One of the most popular explanations is that the substance is the remains of the regurgitated innards of amphibians such as frogs and toads and/or their spawn. It may be a fungus, such as the Crystal Brain fungus, or Exidia nucleata to give it it's scientific name, the fruiting bodies of which appear as a white gelatinous mass. Similar to the fungus, it may be a slime mould such as Mucilago crustaceae, which is again a white to translucent coloured jelly-like mass when it first appears. As it get older, it dries out and hardens to a powdery type consistency which is then dispersed by wind and rain. It may be a species of algae similar to a common species that grows on grasslands called Gloeocystis, which appears as a slimy mass. Finally, it could be a cyanobacteria such as Nostoc, which consists of cells covered in a gelatinous substance. Normally it remains unseen, but swells up after heavy rainfall.