World's Oldest Fossil?

A 440 million-year-old mushroom that kick-started life growing on Earth is the oldest fossil ever found on land.

16:14 03 March 2016

A 440 million-year-old pioneering mushroom has been unveiled by scientists and dubbed as the oldest fossil ever found on land. The discovery of the incredible fungus suggests that dry land was first colonized by primitive mushrooms before life on Earth could bloom. 

 

Dr Martin Smith, of Durham University, said: "During the period when this organism existed life was almost entirely restricted to the oceans: nothing more complex than simple mossy and lichen-like plants had yet evolved on the land.

 

"But before there could be flowering plants or trees - or the animals that depend on them - the processes of rot and soil formation needed to be established.

 

"This fossil provides a hint that mushroom-forming fungi may have colonised the land before the first animals left the oceans.

 

"It fills an important gap in the evolution of life on land."

 

"What we see in this fossil is complex fungal 'behaviour' in some of the earliest terrestrial ecosystems - contributing to soil formation and kick-starting the process of rotting on land."