Myxomycetes: Slime Mold Life 1935

This 1935 silent educational film, Myxomycetes Or Slime Mold, shot in black-and-white 16mm, explores the enigmatic slime molds—protists blurring plant-animal lines. Reel one reveals their damp haunts, like rotting logs, and fruiting bodies—sporangia—bursting to release colorless, flagellated swarm cells that swim, then turn amoeboid. Reel two tracks a protoplasmic mass, likely Physarum, foraging via reversible streaming in its network, with peristaltic waves at the advancing edge digesting prey. A pre-war study of these border-line organisms, it highlights their dual nature and ecological role in decay.