It is also known as dog vomit slime mold and is relatively common with a worldwide distribution, often being found on bark mulch in urban areas after heavy rain or excessive watering.

[7] The plasmodium eventually transforms into a sponge-like aethalium, analogous to the spore-bearing fruiting body of a mushroom; which then degrades, darkening in color, and releases its dark-colored spores.

[15] Fuligo septica contains a yellow pigment called fuligorubin A that is thought to be involved in photoreception and in the process of energy conversion during its life cycle.

[16] In 2011, a Japanese research group reported isolating and characterizing a new chlorine-containing yellow pigment from a specific strain of the organism that they called dehydrofuligoic acid.

[20][21] Introns are sections of DNA that must be properly cleaved, digested and processed prior to rendering functional mRNAs for protein synthesis.

Because it has a large number of group I introns, F. septica is used as a model to understand the processing and evolution of RNA.