WEBVTT - From the Vault: Shrooms Like Cedars in the Devonian Wilds 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.760 Hey, welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. My name 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:11.360 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:13.320 Time to go into the vault. Today we're going to 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.480 be listening to an episode that originally published December seventeen 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:22.680 nineteen about gigantic prehistoric fungus. That's right, prototaxites, I believe 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:25.720 is the pronunciation. I think, I think we we labored 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:28.040 over it enough that it's stuck in my head. But 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:29.480 this is a fun one. I think we we did 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:31.640 a little skit for this one with time travelers. At 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:36.760 the beginning, the time traveler, for so it will be 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.080 convenient to speak of him, turned his attention at last 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:44.520 the Devonian period. His pale gray eyes shone and twinkled, 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.280 and his usually pale face became flushed and animated. The 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.760 calm of morning was upon the world world, and it's greening, 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.440 the spring time of the Earth. The environment was arid 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.400 and warm, and everywhere I walked I observed forests of 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:02.120 moss and clusters of shrub like ferns, and horse tails. 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:07.319 Amid them crept primitive arthropods and something that looked remarkably 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:09.640 like a winged insect, though I did not catch it 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.200 in the act of flight. But there were no leaves, 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.320 no true trees to lift a canopy above my head. 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:18.319 But what I at first took for primitive conifers proved anything. 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:22.560 But each of these cylindrical giants stood some twenty feet high, 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:26.000 and we were a good yard wide. They towered above 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.640 the Devonian world like skylight pillars, and I observed just 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.880 a hint of scores carried away from their bizarre heights. 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:38.920 I wonder, then, might these organisms be giant mushrooms? But 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.440 that's when the more locks came at me. The more locks, 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:44.440 I said, surely, the more locks existed far in the future. 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.720 What were they doing in the Devonian? Well, they stole 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:49.320 my time machine and they followed me. But you arrived 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:52.080 there in your time, Well, they stole it from the future. 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.320 But the look time travel is very complicated. No further questions. 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:01.360 Welcome to have to blow your mind? A production of 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:10.000 I Heart Radios has to work. Hey, are you welcome 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:11.760 to stuff to blow your mind? My name is Robert 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.480 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And in that cold open 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:16.639 we had a little fun with H. G. Wells. The 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:20.640 time machine, which of course is a is a wonderful novel, 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:26.000 well worth seeking out even in today's uh technically advanced times. 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:28.120 I remember liking it when I read it, but I 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.440 don't recall does he actually go into the prehistoric past. Well, 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:33.720 he certainly goes into the far, far future, which is 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:35.560 kind of my inspiration for that, because he goes he 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:37.359 goes so far into the future that the world is 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.880 just an alien landscape. But one of the fun things 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:43.880 is that if you travel back far enough in time, 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.280 you also encounter an alien landscape like that is what 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.560 the surface world of the Devonian period four hundred million 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:56.720 years ago basically was, and so it was irresistible to 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.079 use the time traveler. Here is a is a way 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:00.880 of sort of the magic name what it might be 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:06.960 like to walk amid the strangely strange specimens. That's all 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:10.560 this weird Devonian flora and a glimpse in the wild, 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.679 a living specimen of an organism that continues to mystify 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.440 us in the past. It's been called a mystery fossil 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:20.600 even and that is proto tax i t s. Yes, 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:23.400 today we are going to be talking about the world 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.560 of prehistoric fungus. This is something that I wanted to 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:29.840 talk about for a long time because fungus in the 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.200 fossil record. I think there's actually a lot of interesting 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:35.200 stuff we could explore. But the keystone of today's episode 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.680 is going to be, Yeah, the fossil remains of these 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:42.920 giant stylite organisms from hundreds of millions of years ago 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.560 that we're the tallest standing things of their time, and 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:50.200 we don't know for sure what they were. We have 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:52.560 we have better ideas than we used to, and we'll 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.320 get into that as the episode goes on. But yeah, 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:58.760 try to imagine yourself as a paleontologist digging into the 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.520 strata from a pure it hundreds of millions of years ago, 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.000 where there were no trees, there's no there are no 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:07.880 forests on the Earth, but you find these six meter 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:13.000 high giant pillars of something that was alive. Yeah, and 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.440 you can see if you look up the images of 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:19.120 prototax it t s, you'll you'll see people posing with 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.520 the fossil remnants. Uh. And it looks like like a 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.080 massive pillar or even in the way it's broken in 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.280 some of these uh, these fossils, it looks like it 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.560 could be the you know, the neckbone of some of 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:34.640 some enormous creature. Like there's an enormity to the fossil 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:37.880 uh that that makes it so irresistible. It is a 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:41.320 giant of the past, but it is not. It is 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.840 not an animal, it is it is something else. We 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:49.000 don't know exactly what prototax it t s looked like 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:52.440 when it was alive. They are different interpretations of it, 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:58.120 but some of the interpretations uh and in resulting illustrations 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:01.840 really give it a kind of almost like a gigaresque 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.960 or love crafty and appearance of something that looks truly 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.840 like a um like like pillars, like towers, like little 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.760 mom like not little you know, towering monoliths um and 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.200 and certainly they were the largest and tallest feature of 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:22.040 the Devonian terrestrial environment. It dominated the early and early 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:25.120 Middle Devonian period, though it eventually gives way to the 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.080 rise of shrubs and early and other early plants in 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.440 the Late Devonian. But it is, to say the least, 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:35.320 a very tantalizing fossil that can continues to be something 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.440 of a mystery fossil. So to to get to the 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:40.960 origin of the fossil find itself, we have to go 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:45.240 back roughly a hundred and seventy six years, and that 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:49.120 is when in eighteen forty three Canadian born geologist William 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:54.000 Edmund Logan unearthed fossil remnants of Devonian flora. And the 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:57.640 classification of the Devonian period, by the way, only dates 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.680 back to the eighteen thirties, so it was you know, 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:04.360 kind of a revolutionary time and just geologic discovery in general. 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.080 The name of the Devonian, of course, comes from the 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:10.760 Devon area in England, where some of these uh fossil 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:15.160 finds come from. So Logan found uh these specimens in 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:18.720 the exposed sections of a Devonian rock on the shores 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.640 of the believe it's gossip a bay in Quebec, and 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.720 particularly an area is called seal Cove, which he was 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.400 mapping for coal and other minerals. Well, this fits in 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:33.480 with a great Canadian tradition of of awesome fossil sites 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:37.480 being discovered in you know, not originally by paleontologists, but 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:42.000 by people developing industry and heavy heavy transport and stuff like. 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:45.480 I think about how the the shale beds like the 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:49.839 Burgess Shale and the Canadian rockies were originally found because 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.480 railroad workers who were building railroads through the area. We're 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:57.880 finding these stone bugs everywhere, and that eventually attracted the 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.520 attention of paleontologists to come in and us to gate. 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:05.720 Oh yeah, the world of trilobytes, right, and other creatures 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.840 of course, which we'll get back to later. So I 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:10.920 want to note that one of one of my key 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.040 sources on the the early history of this fossil find 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:18.080 uh comes to us from paleo biologist of Francis Huber 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:20.640 of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, d C. 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:25.840 Who wrote a two thousand and one piece titled Rotted 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:31.280 Wood Algae Fungus The History and Life of prototax I T. S. Dawson, 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.280 eight fifty nine. And it's just a tremendous source on 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:37.960 all of this. But it's also very concerned with naming, renaming, 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:42.040 and misnaming things, even getting into the various names used 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:45.920 by Logan and others to designate the cove in which 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:49.760 they found this. But at times it may seem a 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:51.520 little tedious if if you read it in full, but 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:57.080 UH fair enough citation and uh in miscitation and the 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.400 illegitimate renaming of things is a vital part of this 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.440 fossil's human history. Yeah, well, you know, you've got to 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:05.800 get people to agree on what they call things, or 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:07.520 it's gonna be a lot harder to talk about them 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:13.480 and can become quite a dramatic issue as well. Unraveled here. So, 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:17.400 in eighteen fifty five, Logan's Devonian Flora fossils passed into 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:22.320 the hands of noted Canadian geologist John William Dawson, who, 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:25.520 by the way, the mineral Dawsonite is named in his honor. 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.360 He was particularly taken by a large specimen with the 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:33.400 with the peculiar interior structure. It resembled a large tree, 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:37.120 but under a microscope he became clear that the fossilized 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:42.240 tissue was uh solicified, you know, containing an entangled mesh 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:46.600 that resembled fungal my cilia. He even noted the mysilia 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:50.160 resemblance himself in his writings, but he didn't really explore 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.920 it further. Uh, I mean, he did not explore the 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.160 explore the fungal angle further, but he was very interested 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.120 in this fossil. He traveled to seal Cove himself and 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.120 obtained a dish l samples. Okay, so they've found this 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:05.680 giant fossilized trunk of something. It looks like it could 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.360 be the trunk of a tree, but examining it on 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:11.800 a microscopic level, it looks more like the texture of 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:15.480 fungus than it does the texture of plant matter. Right, Yeah, 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:19.760 particularly my cilia and then mysilium is the vegetative part 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.719 of a fungus. Just reminded everybody. It's a It's a 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:27.640 mass of branching vein like hiphe that you'll find underground 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.640 or in whatever. The mushroom or the fruiting body is 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:36.000 emerging from the mushroom itself is a death emergence. Life 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:40.000 is actually thriving beneath the surface. The mushroom comes up 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:44.040 to to release spores. Yeah, it's a reproductive organ. Yeah. Now, 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.720 the way Dawson interpreted this, this this fossil was Okay, 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:51.040 we have something that looks like like fungus. So what 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.199 we have here is probably a rotting conifer tree, you know, 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:58.240 an early conifer tree. It's rotting, it's decomposing. So I'm 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:03.800 seeing the decomposed their fungus within the decomposing uh specimen, 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.679 all of this preserved in a single fossil specimen. Well, 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:08.679 that would make sense. It's it is a tree trunk. 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:13.280 It's infested with fungal Mysilia type structures, right, and so 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:17.440 he gave it the name prototax I T S. Or essentially, 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:21.880 first you referring to the U family texas cia, so 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:25.720 the U tree right. Yeah, So so the the actual 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:31.920 name is is referring to UH conifer resemblance. So he 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.880 puts these eyes ideas out there, and then, um, you know, 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:38.679 quite as a surprise to Dawson, a Scottish botanist by 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:43.320 the name of William C. Carruthers proposed a different interpretation. Uh. 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.280 He said, well, this is perhaps the fossil remains of 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:52.240 a very large algae aquatic or perhaps terrestrial in nature. Algae, 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:54.920 of course, can grow in weird places like on ice 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:59.120 and snow. So he declared a new name. He said, Nope, 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:01.199 we're not going to call this prototax I T S. 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:05.280 We're gonna call this nemato ficus. Okay, but wait a minute. 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:09.280 An algae that like a giant fossilized algae the size 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:11.800 of a tree trunk. Yeah yeah, I mean that's creepy. 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.079 Well yeah. One of the things, and this is pointed 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.960 out by others that have studied, is like, there's basically 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.640 no non weird explanation for this weird fossil. We'll get 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:24.000 to several comments like that later. Yeah, there's no like 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.280 normal way of looking at it. Now, Here's here's the 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.040 thing about Carruthers coming along and saying, no, this is 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:35.959 nemo nemato ficus. First of all, there are rules with 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.360 the naming of things, even at the time, so you're 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:41.319 not allowed to just come and give it a new 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.920 name that it's an illegitimate renaming. So so that alone 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.800 is kind of weird and and rude. But then also, 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.920 according to Huber, Carruthers was just scathing and very personal 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:59.280 in his criticism. Quote scathing and slanderous uh in terms 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:01.920 of critic as sizing Dawson, and it seemed to have 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:05.560 like really caught Dawson off guard. Um, you know, based 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:07.920 on these descriptions, one is tempted. I don't do not 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.000 know much about William C. Carruthers, but but just based 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:13.520 on Huber's writing, one is tempted debut Caruthers is something 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:16.679 of a bully in his field while also being an 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:21.560 extremely respected botanist. But then again, perhaps our our our 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.199 vision of this rivalry is incomplete. Well, if that interpretation 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.679 is correct, he would not be the only legitimately good 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:32.000 scientist who also is lacking in manners and hire another 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:37.040 so um. According to Huber, Dawson fought for his initial classification, 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:40.000 but but then later he ends up rejecting it, apparently 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:42.920 even trying to make it seem as as if he 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:45.920 never connected the fossil to conifers at all. And then 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.360 he himself, in his eight book The Geological History of 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:54.920 Plants illegitimately used the name nomato ficus instead of Prototaxi 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.760 t suh. So I imagine that, at least to the 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:01.400 time that Huber was writing in like two thousand one, 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:04.280 you don't do this. You don't just like switch the 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:06.800 name to something else without a I don't know. I'd 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.520 imagine a lot of fields have like an international naming 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:11.800 committee that if there is going to be a name change, 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.160 would have to agree on it or something. Yeah, I mean, 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.240 it's it's why for instance, uh, like one's fossil that 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:21.600 we've discussed on the on the show before U Basilosaurus okay, 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.640 uh I hear saw us in there. That means lizard, 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.319 it means king lizard. But it was not. We know 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.199 now it was not a lizard at all. It was 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.880 a mammal. But we we we don't go back and 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:37.120 change the name in this case. So it's a similar 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.679 case here. The name prototax I t stuck and did 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:45.480 stick despite carruthers uh notion that we should switch to 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:49.200 a different name, and that name also Prototaxids, is still 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:53.920 used today but names aside. So Carruthers is pushing this interpretation. Okay, 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:56.439 this is not a rotting conifer tree that's full of 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:00.319 kind of fungal infestation. This is a giant alga. So 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:03.480 what happens with this interpretation, Well, this becomes the dominant 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:07.920 interpretation for a while, and it basically goes unquestioned until 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:12.160 nineteen nineteen when one Ah Church brings up the possibility 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.120 that this is a fungus after all, considering the size 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:20.440 is achieved by by certain contemporary fungus specimens such as uh, 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:24.960 you know, various woody decomposer fun guy. But this idea 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:28.200 didn't take off. He seems to have coined Huber. Basically, 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:32.160 this guy was ignored and the alta interpretation continued with 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.920 papers in you know his reason it's a nineteen seventy 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.080 nine and nineteen eighty three, continuing this threat of interpretation, 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:41.320 I think it is worth stepping back to just appreciate 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.840 again the physical form of this thing we're talking about. 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:49.960 The fossil records indicate that whatever this was, alga rotting 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.840 conifer tree, or even fungus, it was huge. You know. 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.880 I've seen estimates of a maximum known height of six 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:01.280 or even eight meters like twice need to twenty five ft, 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:04.400 So you've got a giant six m high stock of 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:08.720 whatever it was. So something that was alive at a 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.000 time when we have no evidence that any vertebrates had 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:15.400 yet left the water, there were no trees or anything 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:17.280 like that. Yeah, it's it's kind of like it's like 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:19.920 a tree. It's not a tree, Yeah, it's a it's 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:24.160 a it's a weird column of life that exists before 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.600 there should be anything like a column. Yeah, and you 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.480 mentioned earlier, I think that this would have been at 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:31.880 a time where this would have been, without question, the 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:35.640 tallest living thing on land. No, no trees, nothing stood 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.120 above it. And I'm trying to imagine the implications of 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:41.560 that if we were to live in this world. Because 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:45.000 here's one for you. When you think of the word nature, 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:47.720 what's the first thing that pops into your head? My 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:50.000 very person to person, maybe you're not like me, but 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.720 I think most people, at least in tree filled ecoregions, 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.880 think trees when they think nature. Yeah, Or you know, 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.480 even if I you know, I really love the landscape 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:03.920 of of say Arizona, which, of course and coke comes 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:08.000 as a variety of different environments. But but even if 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.400 you're thinking about the desert, you're probably thinking about cacti. Yeah, 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:15.760 because like the tallest features in a landscape, I think 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:20.120 naturally become definitive of that landscape force. When you think city, 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:24.680 you think buildings when you think nature. Again, this might 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:27.160 be different for people who live and say like treeless environments. 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:29.240 Say if you live in a step or something. But 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:31.280 if you live in an area with there are trees, 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:36.120 the trees become synonymous with nature. They're the iconic life form. 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.000 Like what is the lorax speak for? You know, the 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:42.000 the The suggestion is that he speaks for nature, but 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.240 he speaks for the trees. Because the trees are nature 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.600 by being the tallest living objects on the ground, you 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:51.760 in some sense assume them to be the icon of nature. Itself. 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:54.440 So what is this thing? It's almost like you could 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:58.160 imagine that if you were to walk around the landscape 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.000 of this period where these things were dominant, maybe Early 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:06.240 Devonian or whatever, this might be your idea of nature. 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:09.520 These giant mounds of whatever they are. Yeah, I mean, 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.199 they were basically the floral lords of the earth. There 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.480 was nothing else to rival them. So I think we 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:18.639 should explore more the continuing scientific debate about what the 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.920 prototaxids is. But before that, let's take a break and 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:24.600 then we come back. We can delve into mushroom theory. 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:30.360 Thank alright, we're back. So we've been talking about these 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.080 fossil organisms from hundreds of millions of years ago, known 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:38.720 as prototaxids, these giant pillars that used to be by 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.080 far the tallest thing on land. And there's been this 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.199 great debate about what these fossils were when they were alive. 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:49.000 Was it the trunk of a rotting conifer tree that 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:52.720 was full of, you know, fungal fibers. Was it a 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:56.000 giant alga or was it in fact a fungus And 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.639 now we're going to get into the details of the 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:04.000 fungus theory. Yeah, despite the conifer versus allergy past for 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:09.479 prototax i t s. The most popular hypothesis at the moment, uh, 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:13.120 seems to be the fungus hypothesis. Uh. Not to say 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:17.760 they are not criticisms or questions regarding the fungus hypothesis, 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.120 but it does seem to be the most popular interpretation. 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:25.280 A giant six meter tall pillar of fungus right now. 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:27.359 I do think it is important to note that we 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:31.720 are not saying giant mushroom per se, because that brings 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:35.760 to mind a certain image like Shitaki's shape, Right, yeah, 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:39.520 sort of a super Mario Brothers kind of world or 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.560 um or something that you would see on a on 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:47.040 a black light fantasy painting in a room. Um. You know, 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:50.920 we're no nobody is interpreting this is is having looked 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:54.680 like a straight up um uh you know, cliche mushroom 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.479 with an airbrush fairy sitting on top of it. Right. 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.840 But but basically the fungus into pradition comes comes down 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:05.800 to the organism's internal structure. It's composed of interwoven tubes 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:10.119 just five to fifty microns across, and this would indicate 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:13.800 not a plant but a fun guy alike in or 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:16.560 perhaps even an algae. UH. You know, some of this 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.040 points in that direction here as well. But on this 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:23.480 issue I want to turn back to Huber again because 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:25.800 this is what he has to say about the algae 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:32.320 interpretation and ultimately UH the move towards the fungal interpretation. Quote. 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:35.880 In my opinion, prototaxid S does not have the structural 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:41.760 anatomy nor morphology of an alga. Chemo taxonomic analysis by 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:47.040 Nicholas concluded that the chemical constituents found in prototax it 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.920 certain fatty acids quton and subarin, differed from modern algae, 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:56.080 but did not preclude an algial affinity. Lack of evidence 0:19:56.400 --> 0:20:00.560 of lignified supporting structures in the otherwise weak tissues UH 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:04.639 and presumed erect habit would have imposed considerable stress in 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:08.639 a terrestrial habitat. The Presence of the compounds associated with 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:13.040 a terrestrial habitat raised the possibility that the genus could 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:16.119 survive on land, but did not prevent reiteration that the 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:20.639 algal affinity was still possible. The anatomy, morphology, and occurrences 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:24.879 cannot be refuted so easily. He also points to UH 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:31.600 ninety six transmission electron microscope findings from Rudolph Schmidt Uh 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:36.240 and this was a paper titled Septal Pores and Prototaxi 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.520 s an Enigmatic Devonian plant uh. In this he reveals 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:46.080 that sceptal pores are are found here, suggesting fungal affinity. 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:51.040 Septal pores are specialized dividing walls between cells, septa found 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:55.280 in almost all species of fungi in the phylum Bassidi 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.920 of my cotta. He points out that the inherent size 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:01.960 of Prototaxi tas has long been a barrier to some 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:05.280 when it comes to accepting fungal affinity, and he counters 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:07.399 this by pointing out that we have you have various 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:12.200 examples of of of quite large contemporary fungi and extensive 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:17.440 my silian networks. He poses that perhaps prototaxites itself had 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:21.480 a vast underground my silia network as well, but we 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:26.159 just don't have fossil evidence of that mysilia network. But 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:30.760 the possible picture here is is fascinating an underground kingdom 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:35.960 of prototaxids erecting enormous fruiting bodies high into the air 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.719 to send its spores on the breeze, spreading its kingdom 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:42.920 even wider, which causes me to have deeper thoughts about 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:45.960 the role of fungus in the evolution of land creatures 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:48.760 and land ecosystems. Yeah, this is the kind of of 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:54.040 of of mental image that the real hardcore fungus fans 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:56.960 I think I could really get behind. This is like, 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:01.320 this is a pulse statements during right here, I've got 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.080 a question here. You ever ever wonder why we live 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:09.359 on land and not underwater? Um less wet. I mean 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:11.760 maybe it seems like a stupid question, but you know 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:13.960 I stand by that, Like, why why is it do 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:18.040 we live in this evolutionary context land based ecosystems rather 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:21.200 than under the water, where we our ancestors came from, 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:24.520 where we very well could have remained. Uh. If you 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:27.800 picture life on Earth in the Cambrian period about five 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:30.920 million years ago, peek under the surface of the water 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.760 and you would find lots of life. Oceans swarming with 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:40.800 strange armies of scuttling, undulating, bilaterally symmetrical animals, billions of 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:44.000 trial bytes. You've got, you know, these extinct bottom dwelling 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:48.040 animals shaped kind of like death metal. Really Pulley's many 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:51.919 legged proto arthropods with hardened plates of armor on their backs, 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:55.760 but also all these other organisms like the low blegged 0:22:55.880 --> 0:22:58.960 spiked worm that we call Hallucigenia we've talked about that 0:22:59.200 --> 0:23:03.520 show before, a group of creatures called Opabinia, which are 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:07.520 swimming arthropods with five eyes and a single long hose 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:10.800 like probosis tentacle reaching out the front of the head. 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:14.320 It was also the time when complex predator prey relationships 0:23:14.400 --> 0:23:18.439 probably first evolved, with predators, possibly including the huge creature 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:23.000 called Anomala caress. And it was a time of geologically 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:26.879 rapid evolution and diversification of marine animal body forms and 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:30.000 survival strategies. If you look in the period just before 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:32.840 the Cambrian period, which is known as the edi acron period, 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:35.880 there you don't find any of this stuff. You find, 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:39.480 you know, maybe little indications of soft bodied worms, but 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:43.200 like where are all these animals? And then of course 0:23:43.280 --> 0:23:46.200 they didn't occur in an instant but on a geological 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:48.919 time scale, all these different animal body forms, with all 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:52.720 this morphological diversity, it all happens pretty rapidly. But of 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:54.879 course it has long been the case that we understood 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:58.280 all this was taking place under the water in the oceans, 0:23:58.359 --> 0:24:02.280 that was simply where the life was back then. Uh, Like, 0:24:02.440 --> 0:24:04.240 we know from the fossil record that if you go 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:07.840 back far enough, almost all archaic life on Earth lived 0:24:07.880 --> 0:24:11.200 in the oceans and the Precambrian world. It seems the 0:24:11.400 --> 0:24:14.600