Name: Giant Prehistoric Fungi Once Ruled the Earth
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Today, plants like trees can grow very tall, while fungi remain close to the ground, with most of it hidden underneath. But millions of years ago, some fungi were were 20-feet-tall, towering over Earth’s landscape.

Fossils show that millions of years ago, 20-foot-high fungi grew on Earth.

Giant Prehistoric Fungi Once Ruled the Earth

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Today, plants like trees can grow very tall, while fungi remain close to the ground, with most of it hidden underneath. But millions of years ago, some fungi were were 20-feet-tall, towering over Earth’s landscape.

Fossils show that millions of years ago, 20-foot-high fungi spikes towered over Earth’s landscape.

Fossils show that millions of years ago, 20-foot-high fungi spikes towered over Earth’s landscape.

Planet Earth

NarratorPlants and fungi created one of Earth's first complex terrestrial ecosystems. And their partnership continues to this day.It's often easy to spot mushrooms, which are the reproductive part of some types of fungi. But most fungi live underground where we can't see them.Speaker 1So, this plant is grown with a fungal partner, and you can see that with the plant roots being intermingled with fungal filaments. These wrap themselves around the plant roots and form these intimate associations.NarratorThese associations are so vital that nearly 90% of plants living today are dependent on them.Speaker 1It's really easy to overlook fungi because for the most part they live underground whilst plants grow much taller and are more obvious.NarratorBut some fossil evidence from around 420 million years ago suggest that this balance once looked quite different.Something utterly astonishing has happened to some fungi. They have become giants.Colossal fungal spikes tower over the landscape. They're called prototaxites.Standing over 20 feet high, they reproduce by releasing spores that are carried by the wind.Speaker 2The prototaxites landscape would have been an alien world.NarratorSo alien that when the fossils were first discovered back in 1843, scientists were not even sure what they were.Speaker 3It was a very strange and odd thing when people found it was shaped like a chunk of wood.NarratorBut when they took a much closer look, they discovered something incredible.Speaker 4So what this is, is a very thin slice of prototaxites.And we find that unlike a log, which would be full of woody cells, instead, we find a mass of these fungal filaments reminiscent of fungi today.Speaker 3It creates, in my mind, one of the most bizarre prehistoric landscapes of all, because there's nothing like it today.NarratorThe towering prototaxites dominate the landscape. Plants, by contrast, are still tiny, measuring just a few inches or less.

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Giant Prehistoric Fungi Once Ruled the Earth

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