The family Acrasidae (

ICZN The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals. It is also informally known as the ICZN Code, for its publisher, the Int ...

, or Acrasiomycota,

ICBN The ''International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN) is the set of rules and recommendations dealing with the formal botanical names that are given to plants, fungi and a few other groups of organisms, all those "trad ...

) is a family of

slime mold Slime mold or slime mould is an informal name given to several kinds of unrelated eukaryotic organisms with a life cycle that includes a free-living single-celled stage and the formation of spores. Spores are often produced in macroscopic mul ...

s which belongs to the excavate group Percolozoa. The name element - comes from the Greek '' akrasia'', meaning "acting against one's judgement". This group consists of cellular slime molds. Some would also consider it as a kingdom unto itself, but the debate is as yet unsettled. The terms "Acrasiomycota" or "Acrasiomycetes" have been used when the group was classified as a fungus ("-mycota"). In some classifications, '' Dictyostelium'' was placed in Acrasiomycetes, an artificial group of cellular slime molds, which was characterized by the aggregation of individual

amoebae An amoeba (; less commonly spelled ameba or amœba; plural ''am(o)ebas'' or ''am(o)ebae'' ), often called an amoeboid, is a type of cell or unicellular organism with the ability to alter its shape, primarily by extending and retracting pseudo ...

into a multicellular fruiting body, making it an important factor that related the acrasids to the dictyostelids.

Reproduction

When resources such as water or food become limiting, the amoeba will release

pheromone A pheromone () is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting like hormones outside the body of the secreting individual, to affect the behavio ...

s such as acrasin to aggregate

amoeba An amoeba (; less commonly spelled ameba or amœba; plural ''am(o)ebas'' or ''am(o)ebae'' ), often called an amoeboid, is a type of cell or unicellular organism with the ability to alter its shape, primarily by extending and retracting pseudo ...

l cells in preparation for movement as a large (thousands of cells) grex or pseudopod. When in the grex, the amoeboids reproduce, resulting in fruit-like structures called

spores In biology, a spore is a unit of sexual or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many plants, algae, ...

, which develop into

unicellular A unicellular organism, also known as a single-celled organism, is an organism that consists of a single cell, unlike a multicellular organism that consists of multiple cells. Organisms fall into two general categories: prokaryotic organisms and ...

molds of the same

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

References

*C.J. Alexopolous, Charles W. Mims, M. Blackwell et al., ''Introductory Mycology, 4th ed.'' (John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken NJ, 2004) Percolozoa Excavata families {{Excavata-stub