The new analysis published in Science Advances focuses on Prototaxites taiti fossils from the 407-million-year-old Rhynie chert near Rhynie in Aberdeenshire, one of the world’s most important early terrestrial fossil sites. Using chemical “fingerprints” and detailed structural comparisons, the team reports the organism is chemically distinct from contemporaneous fungi and structurally distinct from all known fungi, pushing it outside the fungal family tree altogether.
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Scotland’s Rhynie Chert: A Time Capsule of Early Land Life
The Rhynie chert is famous for capturing a whole early land ecosystem in exceptional detail, making it ideal for side-by-side comparisons of different organisms preserved under similar conditions. In a National Museums Scotland announcement, researchers describe Prototaxites as “life, but not as we now know it,” arguing it belongs to “an entirely extinct evolutionary branch of life.”
This is important as the Devonian period was a critical turning point: plants were experimenting with new forms, early forests were emerging, and animals were beginning to adapt to land. The idea that a giant, trunk-like organism dominated landscapes before trees became common adds a dramatic (and still debated) layer to the story of terrestrialization.
Artist's impression of what the environment at Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, where the prototaxites fossils were discovered, would have looked like 410 million years ago. (Matt Humpage/National Museums Scotland)
What Made Prototaxites So Hard to Classify?
For more than a century, Prototaxites has been a classification headache because it looks like a tall, woody trunk but doesn’t behave (chemically) like a plant. The new paper explains that earlier work had narrowed the options to two “viable hypotheses”: it was either a fungus, or it represented a completely extinct lineage. The authors’ latest data favor the second option.
The team reports no evidence of reproductive structures or a lichen-style symbiosis in their key specimen, and they emphasize distinctive internal features (including different tube types and “medullary spots”) that do not match known fungi. They also report that a fungal biomarker (perylene), detected in surrounding substrate, was not detected in the Prototaxites material they analyzed.
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National Museums Scotland Research Associate Sandy Hetherington with a fossil sample discussed in the new research. (NMS)
Putting the “26ft Lifeform” Into the Devonian Timeline
While the Telegraph coverage highlights a fossil “found in Scotland” and ties the story to organisms towering 26 feet tall, the scientific paper frames Prototaxites as the first giant organism on land, known from columnar fossils “up to eight meters.” Its fossil record spans roughly 420 to 370 million years ago, an era when land plants and fungi were diversifying and terrestrial ecosystems were being reinvented.
That timing intersects with other major Devonian developments Ancient Origins readers may remember - like the emergence of early forests (such as the Middle Devonian fossil forest discussed in Somerset coverage). The Devonian really was a period of “firsts,” and Prototaxites may represent one of the strangest experiments in complex life ever recorded.
Top image: Artist’s impression of what Prototaxites would have looked like in life. Source: Matt Humpage/NMS
By Gary Manners
References
Hetherington, A. J. 2026. 410 million year old fossil which defies classification enters collection of National Museums Scotland. Available at: https://media.nms.ac.uk/news/410-million-year-old-fossil-which-defies-classification-enters-collection-of-national-museums-scotland
Loron, C. 2026. Prototaxites fossils are structurally and chemically distinct from extinct and extant Fungi. Available at: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aec6277
Knapton, S. 2026. ‘New form of life’ discovered … and it’s 26ft tall. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/21/new-form-of-life-discovered-and-its-26ft-tall/
