Prototaxites probably belonged to an extinct lineage of multicellular terrestrial eukaryotes (not fungus)

[Faelrin]

Just came across this paper from a video from Anton Petrov:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.14.643340v1

And the video for folks that might be interested in it:

I don't agree with the use of AI, but at least he disclaims that it wasn't helpful at all. Thankfully there are people offering to be a scientific illustrator for his channel, so hopefully he takes up on those offers. It would have also been nice to see a new reconstruction provided with the paper's reinterpretation of what this thing was.

[Halichoeres]

This is an unreviewed pre-print. I'll be interested to see how it fares in peer review, as I'm personally not really qualified to evaluate the chemical evidence they're leaning on.

[Faelrin]

Thanks for pointing that out. It was super late when I shared this, and I overlooked that. Will be curious to see if this holds up over time or not.

[Halichoeres]

It's definitely a tantalizing suggestion! The relations of Prototaxites are even more mysterious than those of Tullimonstrum.