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Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms

posted by martyb on Monday December 17 2018, @04:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the No-hookahs-found...yet? dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Smithsonian.com:

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.)

At last we know what wiped out the Sleestak--they kept licking the shrooms.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 17 2018, @06:35PM (5 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday December 17 2018, @06:35PM (#775485)

    The presentation in the video makes me think that jellyfish and mushrooms have a lot in common: simple body that focuses on digesting everything in reach, and reaching as far as possible.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Monday December 17 2018, @07:33PM (2 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday December 17 2018, @07:33PM (#775507) Journal

    focuses on digesting everything in reach, and reaching as far as possible.

    That's what we all do... We are all jellyfish. The body is an exoskeleton.

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    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 18 2018, @06:02PM (1 child)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 18 2018, @06:02PM (#775941) Journal

      focuses on digesting everything in reach, and reaching as far as possible.

      That's what we all do... We are all jellyfish. The body is an exoskeleton.

      I see you haven't digested your computer yet. I know you have it in you!

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday December 17 2018, @07:43PM

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday December 17 2018, @07:43PM (#775512)

    Jellyfish are massively successful, having been around in more or less the same form for perhaps as long as 700 million years.

    As humans are in the process of stripping the oceans of everything even remotely edible, they will soon be the apex predator again.

    Fungus may well have been around for up to 2,400 million years according to Wikipedia. They even survived the oxygenation of the atmosphere, which makes them particularly hardy. They will probably outlive us.

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday December 17 2018, @11:10PM

    by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Monday December 17 2018, @11:10PM (#775612) Homepage
    Quite which step covers these geometric designs (oops, snigger), I forget, but it's pretty early on in this series:
    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXJ4dsU0oGMLnubJLPuw0dzD0AvAHAotW

    Ooooh - a new episode's appeared since I last checked...!
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