The first fungi
A billion-year-old fossil in the Canadian Arctic has chitin walls and branching filaments.
- When
- Known to
- ± 100 million years
- Era
- Neoproterozoic, Proterozoic
Ourasphaira giraldae, from an estuary deposit dated between about 1.1 billion and 890 million years ago, shows the branching filaments and chitin-bearing walls that define fungi. It roughly doubles the known age of the group. Fungi are the partners that later make plant colonisation of land possible, so their early appearance matters well beyond the fungal lineage itself.