By: Rachel Bernstein

Q: What do you get when a rock crosses with didymo?

A: Rock snot.

As I learned from covering the algae story in Monday’s paper, scientists came up with this clever nickname for the dribbles of goo that cover river rocks and bugs. And after seeing pictures of it, yeah, didymo looks like snot.

Apparently the stuff is most problematic for fishing lures and bait — it covers your line with foot-and-a-half long rat tails, said Jason DuPont, a guide on the Gunpowder River. So you can imagine that must do wonders for fishing.

But it starts to grow like peach fuzz in the fall, DuPont said, and practically doubles in size over the winter. Until spring, the goop will be at its fullest bloom, if you want to catch some pretty views of rock snot.