Researchers have discovered a tool of fungi, 115 million years old

About 115 million years ago, on the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, a small mushroom fell into the river and was swept into a saltwater lagoon, where it was buried in sediment and lingered with time. After reviewing 'what's left' since the Cretaceous period in Brazil, the researchers say this is the oldest fossil mushroom in the world.

Sam Heads, a paleontologist who specializes in insect fossils, digitized specimens from Crato Formation (a source of fossil specimens, very important for paleontologists) when he found 'something orange' that made him very anxious.

This is the oldest mushroom fossil in the world.(Illustration).

'I looked at it under a microscope, and I could see the structure that looked like mushroom-bearing layers. It has a hat and trunk, ' said Heads, who works at the Illinois Natural History Survey. 'I thought, wow, this looks like a mushroom.'

Finding dinosaur bones dating back millions of years is one thing. But discovering a mushroom from the Cretaceous, when the Earth was flooded with dinosaurs and flowering plants began to appear, what an incredible thing.

Fossils of "fungus" fungi.

'Mushrooms are very fast in nature,' says Heads. 'They usually disappear after only a few days.'

However, mushrooms have been there for millions of years, thanks to the environment where it is preserved.'Only about 10 mushroom fossils are known,' Head said. And all those fossils were preserved in amber, when the sap fell into the forest, it covered the mushroom and preserved it for a long time. According to Heads, the second ancient mushroom fossil is about 100 million years old.

'Crato Formation is really a unique and unique preservation phenomenon as well as the formation of this ancient mushroom fossil ,' Heads said, with his research with Andrew Miller, a plant and mushroom expert. ancient, described in a new article in scientific journal PLOS ONE.

Fossil mushrooms live in the Cretaceous period, when the supercontinent Gondwana breaks apart.

So can this 'specific' fungus be edible or poisonous mushroom? Will dinosaurs eat this fungus or will it avoid it? All these things, so far, have not been able to say exactly. According to Heads, he and Miller stopped delivering it to a group of mushroom experts because they couldn't be sure. But they think it can be with the same family of Strophariacae.

'I've been with Crato Formation for 15 years , ' Heads said. 'I've never seen anything like that before. But this specimen shows that nothing is impossible. "