Division Myxomycota comprises the plasmodial slime molds. The slime molds are unicellular, colonial, and multicellular at different stages of their life cycles. They thrive in moist environments with bacteria, usually on decaying organic matter. There are two main group of slime molds: the cellular slime molds and the plasmodial slime molds.

The plasmodial slime molds, like cellular slime molds, can exist as solitary amoeboid cells when food, including bacteria, yeasts, and small pieces of decaying organic matter. While in the unicellular stage however, an amoeboid plasmodial slime mold will form a plasmodium, a weblike structure that can grow to several centimeters in diameter. The plasmodium eats by extending pseudopodia, and, though large and branching, it is a continuous mass of cytoplasm with many nuclei. The thin tubes of the plasmodium optimize surface area to increase uptake of nutrients, oxygen, and water, and these are distributed by pulsing and sending streams of cytoplasm throughout the organism.

When food becomes scarce, the plasmodium differentiates into numerous reproductive structures, from which amoeboid or flagellated cells will emerge wwhen the food supply increases. Though the slime molds resemble some fungi, they are completely unrelated to any fungus. For that matter, the slime molds are not closely related to any other living organisms.

A useful Myxomycete resource: MyxoWeb