Myxomycete of the Day

[Pitufo]

Elaeomyxa cerifera, cross-eyed stereo pair.

[marksteer]

Fantastic colours This species seems to come up as 'extinct' in UK but maybe just 'under recorded'?

[Lancashire Lad]

2018-01-02-19.43.39 ZS stereo_000crop_unsharp21000.jpg
Elaeomyxa cerifera, cross-eyed stereo pair.

That's one helluva photo, John.

Pin sharp from front to back and without a hint of digital artefacts!

One of the images on its own would have been absolutely superb, but having a "3D" stereo pair takes it to another level!

I find doing the defocussing of the eyes thing pretty easy, and was able to "lock into" the "3D" image within a couple of seconds.

A hint for those who might be struggling. - While looking at the two images, put a finger, centrally in front of the images, in the space between your eyes and the screen, and slowly draw your finger towards your eyes - focussing on your finger but still keeping the on screen images in view.
At some point when your finger is nearing your nose, you should start to see three images on screen, with the centre image a partly overlapped version of the outer two.
When you get to the right spot, the partly overlapped images will suddenly merge completely.
Just keep your eyes at that state of focus, and remove your finger - voila your brain is tricked into seeing a "3D" image.

Give it a go folks, the resultant 3D image of this myxo is well worth the effort!

Regards,
Mike.

[Pitufo]

Thanks Mark and Mike. Elaeomyxa cerifera was not a UK collection but it is found in Europe.

Here's another stereo of the well known experimental organism Physarum polycephalum (although it is more often seen as a yellow plasmodium).

It's pretty easy to grow the plasmodia and it wasn't too hard to germinate some spores and see swarm cells (with flagella). They were swimming around in circles mostly. An empty spore casing can be seen in the centre of the photo.

[Pitufo]

Lamproderma (TBC)