But new research from the University of Edinburgh and National Museums Scotland has shown the fossil is neither fungus nor plant, but a new lifeform that became extinct around 370 million years ago.
Sandy Hetherington, the lead co-author and research associate at National Museums Scotland, said: “They are life, but not as we now know it, displaying anatomical and chemical characteristics distinct from fungal or plant life, and therefore belonging to an entirely extinct evolutionary branch of life.”
‘They are life’ wtf? LoL
an entirely extinct evolutionary branch of life
Pardon my ignorance, I seem to have misunderstood the meaning of “extinct” (?).
It’s a fossil. Really should be part of the headline.
Oooh, okay yeah.
Man, what I wouldn’t give to time travel back millions of years and just have a glance through the window of a pod, to see what it would be like to live here for a day back then.
Spooky phallus.
deleted by creator
However since it doesn’t do photosynthesis we can rule out belonging to those clades,
There are plants and algae that don’t do photosynthesis (although I think they still have vestigial chloroplast?)
deleted by creator
