This creature is not at all a mold, nor is it a fungus, but is a colony of single-celled organisms that normally live independently of each other. It's only when food is scarce that they gather up in colonies and move en mass. The cluster is capable of producing fruiting bodies that can send spores away with the wind to set up shop where food is hopefully more plentiful.
Here a slime mold colony begins to form.
Later in the day, the mass swelled into the slowly moving ooze shown at top. By the following day, the colony had formed fruiting bodies and sent its spores on an exploratory mission.
Soon, there was no sign of the slime mold.
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