Oldest proper mushroom from Cretaceous of Brazil

[Halichoeres]

Not as exciting as tyrannosaur skin or enantiornithine chicks, but a cool fossil of an organism that only fossilizes with difficulty:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178327

[Jose S.M.]

Mushrooms are very exciting to me, thanks for sharing.

[Faelrin]

I like mushrooms. I never really stopped to think and research fossil mushrooms before. I guess this changes that. Interesting that it is the oldest found so far and only from the Cretaceous. I never realized mushrooms are relatively recent in the grand scheme of time.

[Halichoeres]

I like mushrooms. I never really stopped to think and research fossil mushrooms before. I guess this changes that. Interesting that it is the oldest found so far and only from the Cretaceous. I never realized mushrooms are relatively recent in the grand scheme of time.

For what it's worth, mushrooms are probably much much older, it's just that they are terrible at fossilizing. Fungi are related to animals, and so are necessarily about as old, and there are some Devonian structures called Prototaxites that are probably some kind of fungus, but this is the first unequivocal mushroom. It's a testament to the exceptional snapshot offered by the Santana Formation.

[irimali]

I like mushrooms. I never really stopped to think and research fossil mushrooms before. I guess this changes that. Interesting that it is the oldest found so far and only from the Cretaceous. I never realized mushrooms are relatively recent in the grand scheme of time.

For what it's worth, mushrooms are probably much much older, it's just that they are terrible at fossilizing. Fungi are related to animals, and so are necessarily about as old, and there are some Devonian structures called Prototaxites that are probably some kind of fungus, but this is the first unequivocal mushroom. It's a testament to the exceptional snapshot offered by the Santana Formation.

You're right about them being much much older.  Fungal spores and hyphae are known from as far back as the early silurian.  It's estimated that the ancestors of fungi and animals parted ways about 1.5 billion years ago, and a few precambrian fossils might be fungi but it's not known for certain.