A friend of mine found this…this…*thing * in her yard. She, being braver than I, actually poked it. Yuck.
Any idea what it is? Her guess is some sort of slime mold, but all the slime mold descriptions we can find talk about it being more…frothy. Me? I’m voting for star jelly. 
(By the way, I do have her permission to post this here.)
Actually, it a starslug leaving starmucilage. 
FWIW, the straightdope on star jelly
Looks like a slime mold to me.
Elephants were screwing in the yard by starlight.
As much as I appreciate the more…uh…outlandish suggestions (and I do)…does anyone have any serious idea of what this stuff is? Oregon sunshine, I see that you suggest slime mold, but in all the pictures of slime mold I’ve seen it looks foamy and opaque rather than slimy and translucent like this stuff.
Right. I noticed that this goo is near a Juniper, or similar piney type plant. It could be diseased gymnosperm sap. Sometimes sick or injured gymnos get awfully gooey.
No clue, but my fave comment from the photos was the person who suggested it mught be an edible jelly fungus or somesuch.
Yum! Can’t wait to dig right in! :rolleyes:
Seconded.
Nothing but a gigantic amoeba with millions of nuclei. Walk for your life!
I for one welcome our new amoeba overlords.
The slime in our yard is usually a real estate agent trying to tell us “We Have Buyers For Your House!”
Could be an absolutely ginormous snail
Looks like a slime mold in is plasmodium phase.
Beware of The Blob, it creeps
And leaps and glides and slides
Across the floor
Right through the door
And all around the wall
A splotch, a blotch
Be careful of The Blob
-Burt Bacharach
Is it more of that funny-colored Siberian snow? (What was that, anyway?)
It comes from commercial top soil. It’s a moisture enhancer. It stores water, then releases it slowly. The problem comes when it’s exposed to too much water. The soil is washed away, and you’re left with gellatinous blobs.
You have no idea how exciting this thread is for me.
A dead Gelatinous Cube? Does it have gold pieces in it?
Odo?
Dude?
You OK?
Eat it! Eat it! You could sooo get a pool going on in here to see if you survive.
As for a serious guess, perhaps it’s the remnants of one of those “slime toys” that a child disposed of in your yard. I forget their name, but they looked very similar.
A number of cheesy horror films started exactly like this. “Wow, that looks strange, I wonder what it tastes like.” :eek:
