A new research report has talked about the discovery of fungi that are at least 900-million-years old. The research report also suggests that these newly discovered microfossils may be sometimes one-billion-years old and it suggests that some kind of fungi lived on the planet much earlier than previously thought.
Scientists believe that life on earth initially sprouted in oceans and in the course of time, life moved from sea to the dry land. However, researchers are still unclear about the living beings that first reached the land and experts believe that this new discovery could provide an understanding of the about the ancient animals that first crawled in the shores.
It should be noted that the microfossils which were now discovered in Canada are much older than the time frame for land-based life than researchers thought. In the wake of this new discovery, researchers believe that animals might have also roamed in the land one billion years ago, as fungi were present in the shores during that period.
"This means that if fungi are already present around 900-1000 million years ago, so should animals have been. This is reshaping our vision of the world because those groups are still present today. Therefore, this distant past, although very different from today, may have been much more 'modern' than we thought," Corentin Loron, a researcher at the University of Liege and the lead author of the study told AFP.
Fungi are one among the most abundant living forms on earth, and it also plays a crucial role in contributing to global biomass after plants and bacteria.
Interestingly, a few weeks back, a team of researchers apparently spotted fungi-like creatures on Mars. After making the startling discovery, researchers who took part in the study argued that it is authentic proof of alien life thriving on the Red Planet.
The report was published in the journal Nature.
