570 vanished lives

306Paleozoic

Branching microscopic hyphae show fungi helping to build the earliest soils.

399Paleozoic

Meter-high columns towered over landscapes of otherwise low vegetation.

400Paleozoic

Tiny flask-shaped fruiting bodies inside plant tissue are among the oldest ascomycete evidence.

413Paleozoic

A perforated tube once treated as an animal is now linked to a branching alga.

414Paleozoic

Simple narrow blades radiated from a common attachment.

415Paleozoic

Spiraled diamond plates formed a calcified pinecone-like body.

416Paleozoic

Whorled calcified branches surrounded a central axis like an underwater bottlebrush.

475Paleozoic

Tiny sac-like structures in coal balls resemble an early ascomycete.

476Paleozoic

Fungal filaments surrounded cyanobacterium-like cells in an early lichen-style partnership.

554Paleozoic

Carbonized cell sheets and tangled tubes came from an enigmatic early terrestrial organism.