I participated in the recent id-a-thon and two of my observations were that my region (greater antillies) is very well covered for id’ers and that no one seems to know how to get random blobs of slime out of kingdom level. The unknowns are all really poor quality pictures or good pictures of fungi/protozoa. How can I learn to move along these cool organisms?
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Unfortunately, I think many of these can’t be identified from photos of the entire organism. They’re small organisms and ID generally relies on seeing microscopic traits, so a snapshot of a glob on a rotting log may not be that useful. You probably have the best shot of figuring out which big group one of these belongs in if it is making spores or fruiting bodies – this is usually very important for classification of these little guys. If there’s one that’s sterile and just in the vegetative form, then it may not be identifiable at all.
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