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Prototaxites
Topic Started: Apr 20 2014, 01:25 AM (151 Views)
Captain Toad
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Time for adventure!~
Prototaxites
Temporal range: 420–370Ma
PreЄЄOSDCPTJKPgN
Late Silurian to Upper Devonian[1]
Posted Image
An 1888 illustration of Prototaxites in section.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Incertae sedis
Genus: Prototaxites
Dawson, 1859
Species
P. loganii
Dawson 1859
P. southworthii
Arnold 1952
Synonyms
Nematophycus
Nematophyton


The genus Prototaxites /ˌproʊtɵˈtæksɨtiːz/ describes terrestrial organisms known only from fossils dating from the Silurian and Devonian, approximately 420 to 370 million years ago. Prototaxites formed large trunk-like structures up to 1 metre (3 ft) wide, reaching 8 metres (26 ft) in height,[2] made up of interwoven tubes just 50 micrometres (0.0020 in) in diameter. Whilst traditionally very difficult to assign to an extant group of organisms, current opinion is converging to a fungal placement for the genus. It might have had an algal symbiont, which would make it a lichen rather than a fungus in the strict sense.

An opposing view has been presented that Prototaxites was not a fungus but consisted of enrolled liverwort mats with associated cyanobacteria and fungal tubular elements.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototaxites
[1] Boyce, K.C.; Hotton, C.L.; Fogel, M.L.; Cody, G.D.; Hazen, R.M.; Knoll, A.H.; Hueber, F.M. (May 2007). "Devonian landscape heterogeneity recorded by a giant fungus" (PDF). Geology 35 (5): 399–402. Bibcode:2007Geo....35..399B. doi:10.1130/G23384A.1.
[2] Boyce et al.
[3] Graham, LE, Cook, ME, Hanson, DT, Pigg, KB and Graham, JM (2010). "Structural, physiological, and stable carbon isotopic evidence that the enigmatic Paleozoic fossil Prototaxites formed from rolled liverwort mats". American Journal of Botany 97 (2): 268–275. doi:10.3732/ajb.0900322. PMID 21622387.
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