Mysterious Tower Fossils May Come From Newly Discovered Life
towering prototaxites Trees ruled the Earth before—and they may have been a form of life that was completely new to science
reconstruction of Prototaxites tatty, Which can reach the height of a telephone pole, growing in the 407 million year old Rhynie Chert ecosystem.
Matt Humpage, Northern Wicked Studios
Before trees arrived about 400 million years ago, our planet’s landscape was dominated by mysterious, spire-shaped life-forms that towered more than 25 feet above the ground. Their trunk-like fossils were discovered in 1843. Yet despite more than a century of speculation, scientists are struggling to answer the most basic question about Earth’s original terrestrial giants: What were they?
According to a new study, this may be because they belonged to a previously unknown branch of life.
first person to investigate This biological misfit did so in 1855 and in 1859 he dubbed it prototaxitesWhich means “initial u.” The name stuck, although experts soon realized that this creature was not a tree at all. maybe it was some kind of land based seagrass Or a megalithic mushroom? “It doesn’t seem like it fits comfortably anywhere,” says Matthew Nelson, a senior research scientist at the Field Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the new study. “People have tried to break it down into different groups, but there’s always things that don’t make sense.”
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Over time, two main hypotheses emerged: either prototaxites Was an ancient fungusOr it fell into a category of its own. Now, after comparing According to the authors of the new study, the fossils of these cryptic creatures, along with fossilized fungi from the same rock deposits, Published today in science advancement, conclude that prototaxites Possibly a distinct lineage. This would place it on equal footing with the six currently recognized kingdoms of life: plants, animals, fungi, protists, bacteria, and archaea.
a fossilized specimen of Prototaxites tati Shows its speckled internal structure.
Laura Cooper, University of Edinburgh
prototaxites It was composed of intertwined tubes, giving it a superficial resemblance to fungi. But the physical similarities end there. Researchers found that prototaxites‘The tubes are wildly branched, whereas the thread-like hyphae in modern fungi follow a more organized pattern. In addition, the researchers found no chemical traces of chitin, a polymer found in the cell walls of all living fungi and in the fossil fungi that were preserved with them. prototaxites. Study co-lead author Laura Cooper, Ph.D. “It appears to have none of the characteristics of living fungal groups,” she says. Student at the University of Edinburgh.
This was not at all unexpected. In a paper of 2022 Co-authored by Nelson with paleobotanist Kevin Boyce of Stanford University, the researchers argued that “if prototaxites was actually of fungal origin, it may represent part of an extinct lineage” – in other words, it already stood apart from other fungi. Boyce is agnostic about where prototaxites Really concerned, and he’s not ready to stick it out of the fungus kingdom yet. But he notes that even though the organism is just a bizarre fungus, it has independently evolved a unique form of complex, multicellular life. “Whatever it is,” Boyce says, “it’s a weird thing to do your job.”
Prototaxites tati A paleontological reconstruction of a 407 million year old Rhynie Chert hot spring ecosystem towers over the surrounding landscape.
Matt Humpage, Northern Wicked Studios
Cooper argues prototaxites “It was so fundamentally different from the fungi we see today” that “attempting to put it into fungi is not productive.” Whether or not this study resolves the question of classification, there is still much to learn. Previous work by Boyce It turns out that prototaxites Probably played an ecological role like that of fungi: consuming rotten organic matter. But very little organic matter was available. In a world of ankle-high plants, these creatures grew as tall as telephone poles. “How it actually works energetically,” says Cooper, “is still a complete mystery.”
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