A giant mystery organism more than 350 million years old has finally been identified as a humongous fungus.
The enigma known as Prototaxites, which stood in branchless, tree-like trunks up to more than 20 feet tall and a yard wide, lived worldwide from roughly 420 million to 350 million years ago. The giant was the largest-known organism of its day, living in a time when wingless insects, millipedes, worms and other creepy-crawlies dominated, as backboned animals had not yet evolved out of the oceans.
"That world was a very strange place," said researcher C. Kevin Boyce, a University of Chicago paleobotanist.
Prototaxites has generated controversy for more than a century. Originally classified as a conifer like a pine tree, scientists later argued that it was instead a lichen, various types of algae or a fungus .
Pictured: Artist rendering of what the fungus may have looked like while still alive.
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