Slime moulds use a form of spatial "memory" to navigate, despite not having a brain, a study
has found.
Scientists in Australia studied the organisms in an experiment normally used to test robots.
They found
that the slime mould could navigate around a U-shaped maze to a food source,
using their slimy deposits.
Researchers
compare its path-finding method to Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumb trail.
Their full
findings are published in the journal Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.
"A slime
mould is not a fungus or mould, but is in fact a protist, which is really the
odds and ends of the natural world that don't fit in with the rest of our
taxonomic grouping system," said PhD student Christopher Reid who led the
study.
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