Even less comfortably susceptible to categorization was the peculiar group of organisms formally called myxomycetes but more commonly known as slime moulds. The name no doubt has much to do with their obscurity. An appellation that sounded a little more dynamic—“ambulant self-activating protoplasm,” say—and less like the stuff you find when you reach deep into a clogged drain would almost certainly have earned these extraordinary entities a more immediate share of the attention they deserve, for slime moulds are, make no mistake, among the most interesting organisms in nature. When times are
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