Moose Mucus

Each year in front of our house, we always have a great population of algae-like masses thriving in the gravel by the road. I call these growths - Moose Mucus. It is extremely slippery and, when one accidently steps in this biological goo, your body slides across the road. (OK- maybe a little exaggeration!)

I sent a sample to my botantist friend, Peggy Romeo, who teaches in Florida. She reported back that this " is definitely filamentous Cyanobacteria. ....... looks like the genus Anabaena. It's a really healthy specimen; I'm going to use it when we get to the prokaryotes this semester. Also, the water around that little sample was F-U-L-L of zooflagellates and ciliates zipping around! You would have loved it!!"

Peggy, you are correct! I love it! How exciting to see those microscopic critters speeding through the water droplets! Most folks looking at these green, slimy masses have little knowledge that there is another world living within the strands of the cyanobacteria.

By the way, cyanobacteria was in my old biology world known as blue-green algae. Actually it is a photosynthetic bacterium of the class Coccogoneae or Hormogoneae, generally blue-green in color and in some species capable of nitrogen fixation. Is that enough background for you all on these procaryotes? (OK- look up procaryotes for thy selves!)