Deep in the bush of northern Tasmania, there’s a woman with a magnifying glass.

She’s crouched over a mossy log, and brimming with quiet excitement.

This is Sarah Lloyd. She is hunting for slime moulds.

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These tiny organisms are only just visible to the naked eye, so they’re best seen under a microscope or through a powerful camera lens.

“They’re so beautiful for a start and they’re quite unexpected,” Ms Lloyd said.

“You never quite know when you go out into the forest what you’re going to see, and I think the people that have become interested in slime moulds over the years … they get hooked.

“They get obsessed by them, like me.”

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What the heck is a slime mould?

For many years, scientists categorised slime moulds as plants.

Under a microscope, they look a lot like fungi.

Some researchers even put them in the animal kingdom.

But slime moulds are not really plants, or mushrooms, or animals.

Rather, they are classified as single-cell organisms called amoeba.

Ms Lloyd explained classification was difficult because slime moulds went through vastly different stages in their life cycle.

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“They have an amoeboid stage … And then they have a plasmodial stage … and then they have the spore-bearing stage,” she said.

The plasmodial stage is perhaps the most fascinating for scientists. It’s when the organisms live up to their name, becoming slimy.

During this part of their life, slime moulds can move around to feed.

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“[Scientists] put a slime mould in a maze, and they’ll put a bit of oatmeal in the corner of the maze, and the slime mould will be able to sense that and go and feed on that,” Ms Lloyd said.

“They’re really fascinating because they can sense things, and they haven’t got a brain, obviously — but we don’t know how they can sense these things.”

Citizen science key to slime mould world

There’s a lot we still don’t know about slime moulds, but knowledge of the minuscule life forms has come a long way in recent years.

Much of that is due to dedicated research from Ms Lloyd, who is a citizen scientist.

Armed with thousands of matchboxes and a camera, she photographs, collects, and meticulously categorises slime moulds in the bush near her house in regional Tasmania.

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Those specimens are sent to researchers around Australia, like Tom May, a world-leading mycologist at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Victoria.

“It’s just been an absolute breakthrough to have someone like Sarah really focusing in on slime moulds,” Dr May said.

“[She has] logged hundreds of collections here with us — really high-quality collections, well documented. It’s just essential in that task of documenting all of Australia’s biota.”

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Ms Lloyd has discovered four new species and one genus in Tasmania.

“When I first started, there were no books for Tasmanian or Australian slime moulds, and so the books I was using were northern hemisphere books … ours resemble them superficially, but there was always some slight difference, which was a bit frustrating,” she said.

“Now we know that they are actually different species.”

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Unsung heroes of the ecosystem

While slime moulds thrive in the wet forests of Tasmania, they are found around Australia and the world, in all kinds of climates.

Anywhere there are plants and animals, there are slime moulds.

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According to Ms Lloyd, they are essential to their ecosystems.

“I reckon they’re really important … for recycling nutrients at that microscopic level,” she said.

As well as supporting life in the bush, slime moulds also keep this citizen scientist “sane”.

“I think in the world, and in Tasmania, where I’ve lived all my life, I see a lot of destruction, there’s a lot of forests being destroyed … it’s hard not to focus on the things that can really get you down,” she said.

“I can make a positive contribution to our knowledge of slime moulds … it’s a good thing to do.”