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humanodon  ·  4173 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by giant mushrooms

I imagine that a world full of giant mushrooms would smell pretty . . . funky. The article says that they are giant fungi, so not exactly mushrooms, or not necessarily mushrooms. I have a limited knowledge of biology, but don't fungi consume rotting organic matter?

Anyway, these things are pretty cool:

    The presence of bio-molecules often associated with the algae may suggest that the organism was covered by symbiotic (or parasitic) algae (making it in essence a huge lichen), or even that it was an alga itself.

Also, the links at the bottom of the Smithsonian article are, at first glance, pretty great/alarming: