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