Since their discovery more than 165 years ago, the huge fossilized structures left by an organism are said to be. Prototaxites It has proved impossible to categorize.
UK researchers suggest in a recently published study that there’s a good reason why these oddities don’t fit neatly into the tree of life – they belong on their own branch, with no modern counterpart.
About 400 million years ago, the swamps of the Late Silurian period sprouted a mix of horses, ferns and other prototype plants that look positively exotic today.
Related: Surprising Grand Canyon Fossils Reveal Strange Uses of Evolution
Between them stretch 8-meter (26-foot) high towers that easily defy recognition. Broad and unbranched, these organisms may be forms of algae or ancient conifers, the researchers suspect, based on little evidence.
Fossils found on the shores of Gaspé Bay in Quebec, Canada were initially thought by geologist John William Dawson to be the remains of decaying trees, leading him to name them the ‘first conifer’ in 1850.
Although the name stuck, confusion about the classification of the fossil continued until National Museum of Natural History paleontologist Francis Huber confirmed it in 2001. Prototaxites In fact it was probably a giant fungus.
That conclusion was backed up years later in 2017 by the analysis of a fossil fragment believed to be from a small peripheral area. Prototaxites A named species Q. Hard.
A 2017 study claims to identify structures similar to the fertile structures of today’s Ascomycota fungi.
Magnified image of thin section showing characteristic tubes and medullary spots Q. Hard. (Loron et al., Science2026)
Not everyone is convinced, however, given the possibility that the disparate pieces are not even connected.
Related: Newly Discovered Organism May Represent a Whole New Branch on the Tree of Life
“We have never found such structures in anatomy books and books written about living fungi,” paleobotanist Alexander Hetherington of the University of Edinburgh told Eric Stokstad. Science magazine.
Hetherington co-led three different studies Q. Hard fragments, there is insufficient evidence to draw conclusions Prototaxites Everything is a fungus.
comparison between Prototaxites Fossils and other organisms put it in its own group. (Loron et al., Science2026)
Through a review of microscopic anatomy and chemical analysis of its tubular structures, the team of researchers systematically eliminated each candidate group, leaving no modern organism with which it might share some sort of ancestral relationship.
Fungus? Rejected thanks to a unique way of connecting its anatomy.
Plants or algae? Probably its chemical composition is not given.
A mixture of the two, such as a lichen? Not with that anatomy.
Some strange animal? Cell walls say no chance.
Auditions now for ScienceAlert’s casting call
“Based on this investigation we are unable to appoint Prototaxites in any extant lineage, reinforcing its distinctiveness,” claim the researchers.
“We conclude that morphological and molecular fingerprinting Q. Hard It is distinctly different from the fungi and other organisms preserved on the side [Devonian deposit]And we suggest that it is considered a member of a previously undescribed, completely extinct eukaryote group.”
Related: Complex life may be a billion years older than we thought
What might have happened to this long-dead group of creatures is anyone’s guess. Further reviews may also relegate the enigmatic group to a box among ancient fungi.
Without similar samples associated with them, Prototaxites Fossil anomalies can only remain—a reminder that evolution is an ongoing experiment, fraught with more failures than we ever realize.
This research was published in 2015 Science.
An earlier version of this article was published in March 2025 before the research was peer-reviewed.
