He called the organism Prototaxites, meaning “first conifer.” The name stuck, even though the fossil didn’t quite match any known trees. In fact, trees didn’t even exist during the Silurian period, ...

430 million years ago, towering life-forms known as Prototaxites emerged ... But trees didn’t yet exist during the Silurian period, so what exactly was this thing taking over the ancient ...

Chemical analysis suggests the 400-million-year-old fossil Prototaxites was neither plant, animal or fungus – hinting at a ...