Once again, my telephone demonstrates its relative weakness with low light intensities, more or less failing to capture the delicate yellow of the fungus. Fungus which appeared overnight, which makes one wonder whether it really is the vomit of a fox rather than some fungal growth.
So off to google to find a rather thin wikipedia article. From where I move to a rather better article from the Missouri Department of Conservation (reference 2). I think I am now satisfied that the dog vomit fungus is not of vulpine origin and not even a fungus proper. Rather a lowly slime mould, slime moulds being, as I recall, one of the earliest forms of life on earth. But a mould with an amazing rate of growth. If I had more time I would inspect the thing at 3 hour intervals to see what happens. Better still, I would set up one of those fancy cameras which would take a picture every so many minutes and then watch the resulting time lapse video (if that is the right name) from the comfort of my own sofa.
Proper name fuligo septica, with prefix Protozoa-Myxomycota-Myxomycetes-Physarale-Physaraceae, so a distant cousin of the lowly amoeba. According to Missouri, sometimes eaten by Mexicans.
PS: later on, got to thinking about all the spores from this mould floating around in the air. Will one make a mistake and get going on me one day? What happens if one lands inside my lungs, all warm and damp as per the instruction book?
Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=vomit.
Refrence 2: http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/dog-vomit-slime-mold-scrambled-egg-slime-mold.
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