Start your day with one quick fact.
Before Trees, Earth Had Giant Mystery Towers
Around 370-420 million years ago, long before forests fully took over the land, Earth was home to giant trunk-like organisms called Prototaxites. Some fossils show they could grow up to 8 meters (about 26 feet) tall, making them some of the earliest giants on land. The craziest part? Scientists still debate exactly what they were, possibly a fungus or maybe an entirely different kind of life.
Mini Facts
Prototaxites lived before the rise of Earth’s first forests, which appeared around 385 million years ago.
Some specimens reached about 1 meter in diameter and 8 meters in length, so they would have stood out dramatically in ancient landscapes.
For decades, scientists thought Prototaxites was a giant fungus, but newer research suggests it may not fit neatly into the categories of plants, fungi, algae, or lichens.
That means one of the tallest organisms in early land ecosystems may have belonged to a lost branch of life unlike anything alive today.