Wandering through the Woods

It’s not just Sugar Maples that you can find walking through the Dufresne’s Sugar House property. The woods are filled with wildlife of all kinds, from bears to frogs and mushrooms to slime molds (as pictured below). While tapping trees and looking for leaks, you are bound to run into something. Just yesterday I was reaching around a tree trunk to hammer in a leaky tap and found myself eye-to-eye with a startled flying squirrel. Excited, I looked around for my phone to take a picture, but he was quicker than I and managed to elude me.   

The slime mold proved to be a better competitor for my photo-taking capabilities. This fascinating creature is technically only one cell, but holds a large quantity of nuclei throughout the cell. Though they lack a central nervous system, they still manage to achieve a range of impressive feats, including its ability to consistently find the shortest path to food. Can it find the shortest path to some of Dufresne’s delicious maple candy?