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Invisible_Woe

Registered: 05/25/07
Posts: 11,707
Loc: Mabase
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Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms
#19209673 - 11/30/13 06:42 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/07/long-before-trees-overtook-the-land-earth-was-covered-by-giant-mushrooms/
From around 420 to 350 million years ago, when land plants were still the relatively new kids on the evolutionary block and “the tallest trees stood just a few feet high,” giant spires of life poked from the Earth. “The ancient organism boasted trunks up to 24 feet (8 meters) high and as wide as three feet (one meter),” said National Geographic in 2007. With the help of a fossil dug up in Saudi Arabia scientists finally figured out what the giant creature was: a fungus. (We think.)
The towering fungus spires would have stood out against a landscape scarce of such giants, said New Scientist in 2007.
“A 6-metre fungus would be odd enough in the modern world, but at least we are used to trees quite a bit bigger,” says Boyce. “Plants at that time were a few feet tall, invertebrate animals were small, and there were no terrestrial vertebrates. This fossil would have been all the more striking in such a diminutive landscape.”
Fossils of the organisms, known as Prototaxites, had peppered the paleontological findings of the past century and a half, ever since they were first discovered by a Canadian in 1859. But despite the fossil records, no one could figure out what the heck these giant spires were. The University of Chicago:
For the next 130 years, debate raged. Some scientists called Prototaxites a lichen, others a fungus, and still others clung to the notion that it was some kind of tree. “The problem is that when you look up close at the anatomy, it’s evocative of a lot of different things, but it’s diagnostic of nothing,” says Boyce, an associate professor in geophysical sciences and the Committee on Evolutionary Biology. “And it’s so damn big that when whenever someone says it’ssomething, everyone else’s hackles get up: ‘How could you have a lichen 20 feet tall?’”
That all changed in 2007 when a study came out that concluded the spires were a fungus, like a gigantic early mushroom.
But not everyone was sold on the idea that Prototaxites was an early fungus. No one’s questioning the spires’ existence—people just have trouble trying to imagine that such a huge structure could be a fungus. Researchers trying to refute the fungus idea thought that Prototaxites spires were gigantic mats of liverworts that had somehow rolled up. But in a follow-up study, the scientists who had proposed the fungus idea doubled down on their claim. So science is messy, and despite more than a century of digging, we still don’t really know, for sure, what these huge spires that dominated the ancient Earth really were.
But even though the spire-like mushrooms of yore—or whatever they were—are long gone, don’t feel too bad for funguskind. The largest organism on Earth, says ABC, is still a huge fungal mat, a single organism spread over 2,200 acres of forest in eastern Oregon.
More from Smithsonian.com:
A Fungus-Like Disease Threatens Europe’s Supply of Gin The Fungus in Your Cheese Is Having Weird Sex Insulation Made Out of … Mushrooms?
-------------------- These are not the answers you should be questioning.
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DirtyTomFlint
( ಥـْـِـِـِـْಥ)




Registered: 11/26/13
Posts: 1,879
Loc: United Kingdom
Last seen: 1 year, 1 month
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Re: Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms [Re: Invisible_Woe]
#19209694 - 11/30/13 06:47 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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That's pretty insane. However, let's also consider that the current largest organism on Earth is a fungus in Oregon.
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   Know Your Body, Know Your Mind, Know Your Substance, Know Your Source
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travelleler
a horse-fart in a hurricane



Registered: 08/30/08
Posts: 3,955
Loc: yonder mountains
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Re: Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms [Re: DirtyTomFlint]
#19209707 - 11/30/13 06:51 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Edited by travelleler (11/30/13 06:52 PM)
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snapperhead
Stranger


Registered: 08/21/08
Posts: 56
Last seen: 10 years, 1 month
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Re: Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms [Re: travelleler]
#19209840 - 11/30/13 07:24 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Stinkhorns. That explains a few things.
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travelleler
a horse-fart in a hurricane



Registered: 08/30/08
Posts: 3,955
Loc: yonder mountains
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Re: Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms [Re: snapperhead]
#19210094 - 11/30/13 08:38 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
snapperhead said: Stinkhorns. That explains a few things.
you're a stinkhorn!
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something cool
meandering

Registered: 01/30/12
Posts: 1,306
Last seen: 7 years, 4 months
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Re: Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms [Re: travelleler]
#19211179 - 12/01/13 04:04 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Those are cool. It would be so cool to be alive as a human alone in that environment. But then you'd probably die from not eating things that don't kill you.
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Rockhound
The Rockweiler



Registered: 01/19/13
Posts: 664
Loc: hell creek anticline
Last seen: 8 years, 7 months
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Re: Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms [Re: something cool]
#19211204 - 12/01/13 04:31 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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I bet trilobites tasted like lobster.
-------------------- Rocks speak to me, and tell me this: The Hell Creek formation is a gigantic slab of rocks that covers several western states. It contains an account of the dinosaurs' demise. In the late Cretaceous period, the first Cannabis species appear, and soon after, all the non-bird dinosaurs disappeared. Obviously, marihuana killed the dinosaurs. That giant meteor that smacked the yucatan peninsula right afterwards, coincidence.
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IoRhinz



Registered: 04/19/13
Posts: 119
Last seen: 7 months, 13 days
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Re: Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms [Re: Rockhound]
#19212324 - 12/01/13 12:01 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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All I can think about is the backdrop of this one Infected Mushroom concert at Coachella. I didn't go to it, but I watched it on Youtube. There were giant mushrooms everywhere and it looked really cool.
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Grass Wizard
Stranger

Registered: 01/28/12
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Re: Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms [Re: IoRhinz]
#19212842 - 12/01/13 01:51 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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I'm a believer.
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Atrium
Cunt Tickler

Registered: 08/18/13
Posts: 1,284
Last seen: 3 years, 4 months
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Re: Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms [Re: Grass Wizard]
#19214311 - 12/01/13 07:17 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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To quote Chapelle on FearFactor
"This'll get us high for hours!"
I wonder what it would seriously be like to live back then without houses and cars and such, no roads, and just giant ass mushrooms protruding everywhere with ancient life.
-------------------- The only thing about Chemistry I like is all the psychedelics that come from it. The only reason I study Psychology is to have a legitimate excuse to enjoy Chemistry.
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Mr. Dabz
Stranger


Registered: 05/08/13
Posts: 39
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Re: Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms [Re: IoRhinz]
#19216670 - 12/02/13 10:49 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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HAHA i walked past them and it made me laugh... IoRhinz it was a cool set up but damn there music sucks!!!!! and the arab music came on after while i was rolling and it sounded like a bunch of robots mashing buttons and making random noises... I have always wondered what ancient fungus would be like... now i know!
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live2fry
Madam Mushroom



Registered: 12/01/13
Posts: 30
Last seen: 10 years, 1 month
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Re: Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms [Re: Mr. Dabz]
#19217954 - 12/02/13 04:06 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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SOOO COOL!
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