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Mastodon: AboutGet the appKeyboard shortcutsView source codev4.4.0-nightly.2025-03-25

#fossils

13 posts11 participants0 posts today
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Flipboard Science Desk

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland are arguing that the massive and mysterious tubelike fossils known as "prototaxites" deserve their own life form classification because, basically, they're too weird to belong to any other. @Futurism has more, including why prototaxites have long been a head-scratcher and a point of contention for scientists who to this day cannot figure out their nature:

flip.it/V6vZpG

Futurism · Scientists Puzzled by Giant Ancient Life FormsBy Noor Al-Sibai
#Science#Geology#Earth
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llewelly

newest episode of Common Descent is about saber teeth!

They cover everything from Smilodon to Nimravids to Gorgonopsians to fanged deer (although not Hoplitomeryx)! Even Uintatherium gets a mention. Covers recent research on why Smilodon's canines would have been visible when the mouth was closed, while Homotherium's canines would have been concealed when the mouth was closed.

commondescentpodcast.com/2025/

#fossils
#saber
#fangs
#smilodon
#homotherium
#lips
#paleontology

The Common Descent Podcast · Episode 214 – Saber TeethListen to Episode 214 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts! Over and over again, evolution has provided animals with super-sized canines. This episode, we …
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Cosmic Librarian

From our "What-the-heck-was-that-thing" files...

This Bizarre Fossil Isn’t a Plant, Animal, or Fungus—Turns Out It’s a Whole New Form of Life

This strange organism is in a class all its own.

Prototaxites, an extinct organism from the Devonian period, has been thought to be a fungus since its first fossil was unearthed.
Analysis of one Prototaxites species showed that its physical and chemical characteristics were not only different from those of any existing fungus—the didn’t match any existing organism at all.
Prototaxites is now thought to belong to an extinct group of eukaryotes, but what exactly that group was remains a mystery.

#life #fossils # Prototaxites

popularmechanics.com/science/e

Popular Mechanics · This Bizarre Fossil Isn’t a Plant, Animal, or Fungus—Turns Out It’s a Whole New Form of LifeBy Elizabeth Rayne
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Jake in the desert

Ever since their discovery more than 165 years ago, massive fossilized structures left by an organism known as Prototaxites approximately 400 years ago have proven impossible to categorize.

Researchers in the UK suggest in a report (yet to be peer reviewed) that Protaxites are a type of organism with no modern equivalent

sciencealert.com/mysterious-gi

ScienceAlert · Mysterious Giants May Be a Whole New Kind of Life That No Longer ExistsEver since their discovery more than 165 years ago, massive fossilized structures left by an organism known as Prototaxites have proven impossible to categorize.
#science#fossils#Prototaxites
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tinkel

Prototaxites was an extinct lineage of multicellular terrestrial eukaryotes biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20

bioRxiv · Prototaxites was an extinct lineage of multicellular terrestrial eukaryotesPrototaxites was the first giant organism to live on the terrestrial surface, reaching sizes of 8 metres in the Early Devonian. However, its taxonomic assignment has been debated for over 165 years1-7. Tentative assignments to groups of multicellular algae or land plants1,2,8-11 have been repeatedly ruled out based on anatomy and chemistry5,7,11-16 resulting in two major alternatives: Prototaxites was either a fungus5,6,17-22 or a now entirely extinct lineage 7,16,23. Recent studies have converged on a fungal affinity5-7,17-20,22. Here we test this by contrasting the anatomy and molecular composition of Prototaxites with contemporary fungi from the 407-million-year-old Rhynie chert. We report that Prototaxites taiti was the largest organism in the Rhynie ecosystem and its anatomy was fundamentally distinct from all known extant or extinct fungi. Furthermore, our molecular composition analysis indicates that cell walls of P. taiti include aliphatic, aromatic, and phenolic components most similar to fossilisation products of lignin, but no fossilisation products characteristic of chitin or chitosan, which are diagnostic of all groups of extant and extinct fungi, including those preserved in the Rhynie chert. We therefore conclude that Prototaxites was not a fungus, and instead propose it is best assigned to a now entirely extinct terrestrial lineage. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.
#biology#Biochemistry#Paleontology
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Lukas VFN 🇪🇺

Fossil of ancient crustacean gathering reveals new insights into their lives
nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2025/m

Gregarious behaviour in #Carboniferous cyclidan #crustaceans royalsocietypublishing.org/doi

"With legs emerging from underneath rounded shells, #cyclidans looked not unlike an underwater beetle. Earliest species were a few mm in size and form #fossils that look like a tiny bunch of grapes. Over millions of years they evolved larger species, and by the #Triassic they were about as wide as a human hand"

Illustration of a prehistoric crustacean with a flat rounded shell
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formuchdeliberation

Sand-sized fossils hold secrets to the history of climate change…

Between 18,000 and 11,000 years ago, the amount of #carbondioxide in the #atmosphere suddenly shot up. This caused rapid global warming, the mass melting of #glaciers, and the end of the last ice age... #climatechange #globalwarming #photosynthesis #fossils #southernocean #iceage

formuchdeliberation.wordpress.

for much deliberation · Sand-sized fossils hold secrets to the history of climate change…Between 18,000 and 11,000 years ago, the amount of #carbondioxide in the #atmosphere suddenly shot up. This caused rapid global warming, the mass melting of #glaciers, and the end of the last ice a…
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Alberta Palaeo Society

7- Once you have the scan, you can make replicas of your fossils by 3D printing them! Here a fossil predentary, along with the 3D scan.

Thank you to the presenters for doing such a good job, the organizers for putting this together, and the participants for making it all possible! This was an amazing way to end the Paleo 2025 symposium, and we can't wait to see you all next year!

(4 / 4)

At the back of the picture is a fossil predentary (tip of the lower jaw) resting on a foam bed. In the foreground is a slightly smaller, white 3D printed version of the same fossil.
#palaeontology#paleontology#fossils
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