After staying evaded from classification for more than a century, the giant, prehistoric fossil – Prototaxites – has eventually been pulled into the ‘fungus’ category. For decades, the mysterious fossil was mistaken to be a conifer, a lichen or even various types of algae.
The six-metre Godzilla of fungi has a tree-like trunk, claimed to have gone extinct more than 350 million years ago.
It is on the on the basis of an analysis of the fossil’s internal structure, Francis Hueber of the National Museum of Natural History had first suggested it to be possibly a fungus. But, nothing could be concluded from it, as it had no definite proof.
Dr C Kevin Boyce — assistant professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago — seems to have taken up the responsibility of filling in the blanks. But, how did he do that? He has compared the types of carbon found in the mystery fossil with plants that lived about the same period the fossil did – i.e. about 400 million years ago.
But investigating, Dr Boyce surprisingly found that the Prototaxites’ carbon structures did not resemble that of a plant. Instead, the giant fungus has a much greater diversity in its carbon content compared to what is expected of a plant.
Surprised by the findings, Dr Boyce said:
It’s hard to imagine these things surviving in the modern world.
Image Credit: MSNBC
