Paleontologists Found an Ancient Life Form That Doesn’t Belong on Earth

Bright Side

What if some ancient life forms didn’t belong to any known group — plant, animal, or fungus? Dive into the mystery of Prototaxites, a prehistoric giant that defies classification. This discovery challenges everything we thought we knew about ancient life forms and reveals a forgotten chapter of Earth’s biology.  Credit: CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0: Fuligo septica var.candida: By Henk Monster, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60145091 CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0: Prototaxites apex: By G.J. Retallack, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48796185 Slime mold: By Shirokikh125, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71251032 CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0: Ediacaran fossils: By Mahmound Reza Majidifard, Marc Laflamme, Seyed Hamid Vaziri - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-23442-y, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=160324807 CC BY 2.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5: Charnia: By Smith609, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17603788 DickinsoniaCostata: By Verisimilus, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3262792 Animation is created by Bright Side. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV  Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Our Social Media:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other):  https://www.depositphotos.com  https://www.shutterstock.com  https://www.eastnews.ru  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

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00:00So, check out this creature.

00:03What do you think this thing is?

00:04Is it a plant, an animal, or maybe even some kind of wild fungus?

00:09At first glance, this fossil could pass for any of those ancient life forms.

00:13And honestly, scientists have been scratching their heads over it for over 150 years.

00:19But now, it looks like we might finally be cracking the case on this unknown species discovery.

00:25A long time ago, during the Devonian period, plants were just starting to grow on land.

00:31The tallest trees were only a few feet height, and animals hadn't even evolved backbones yet.

00:37Back then, massive natural towers up to 26 feet tall and 3 feet wide,

00:42looking like branchless cylindrical tree trunks, were rising from the ground.

00:47Hey, what a contrast with trees back then.

00:50When scientists first discovered fossils of those towering organisms,

00:53they were totally confused, as these strange, prehistoric creatures

00:57didn't look like anything they'd seen before.

01:01Some thought they were weird, cone-bearing trees.

01:04Others guessed they might be underwater plants, like giant seaweed or lichens,

01:09which are partnerships between fungi and algae.

01:12The mysterious objects received a name, prototaxetes.

01:17When scientists studied them up close,

01:19their internal structure reminded them of a bunch of different things.

01:22They couldn't believe a 20-foot-tall fungus or algae could be real.

01:27But that's what the fossils showed.

01:29Then, most scientists decided that prototaxetes were giant fungi.

01:33But still, something didn't feel right about it.

01:37In 2007, they decided to finally get the prototaxetes mystery explained

01:42and ran a chemical test on the fossils.

01:45So, they looked at the types of carbon inside them

01:48and compared them to regular plants from the same time.

01:51If prototaxetes were plants, the carbon ratios would match.

01:56But they didn't.

01:57That means prototaxetes weren't plants.

02:00And they received carbon in a different way,

02:02not by photosynthesis, but probably more like fungi do.

02:06But then again, they looked nothing like the mushrooms we know and love today.

02:10Prototaxetes were giant,

02:12likely the largest living things on land at their time.

02:15And even if these strange, prehistoric creatures were some fungi of their sort,

02:20then it's weird they don't have any living relatives today that would resemble them.

02:25So, if we put all this together,

02:27it looks like prototaxetes are an entirely different

02:30and previously unknown life form that didn't leave any offspring.

02:36Prototaxetes aren't the only unclassified organisms on Earth.

02:40About 600 million years ago, there were no fish, no sharks, no crabs.

02:46Just simple life forms like algae and bacteria drifting through calm, shallow seas.

02:51But some seriously strange creatures,

02:54completely unlike anything we see today, lived among them.

02:57They looked like underwater ferns,

03:00stood perfectly still, and absorbed nutrients straight from the water.

03:03These bizarre life forms were rangiomorphs.

03:07They ruled the oceans that were thick with nutrients back then.

03:10So, rangiomorphs didn't need mouths, eyes, or muscles to survive,

03:15and just soaked up whatever they needed.

03:17Some of them were as small as a finger,

03:19and others grew as tall as 6 1⁄2 feet.

03:24But as Earth entered the Cambrian period,

03:27the oceans became much more competitive.

03:28Fast-swimming creatures with limbs, eyes, and jaws showed up,

03:33and ate the same food faster,

03:35and maybe even ate the rangiomorphs themselves.

03:38The chemistry of the oceans also started to shift.

03:42And the nutrient-rich waters became more like today's oceans,

03:45where food floats around in particles that active animals scoop up.

03:50So, the rangiomorphs vanished forever.

03:53But scientists still find their fossils all over the world,

03:56preserved in ancient rock.

03:57They had an incredible fractal design,

04:00a pattern that repeated itself at every level,

04:03from the smallest branches to the full body.

04:06Using fossil clues,

04:07researchers built 3D computer models of what rangiomorphs looked like.

04:12They found out that these strange prehistoric creatures

04:15filled their space in a nearly perfect way.

04:18They were like optimized living sponges.

04:21But scientists still can't agree on where exactly rangiomorphs fit on the tree of life.

04:26At first, they argued over whether they were plants,

04:29animals, fungi, or something completely different.

04:33Now, most agree they were primitive animals,

04:35though they were so different that they might deserve their own unique branch,

04:39which scientists call a clade.

04:41And then there was Dickinsonia, another prehistoric creature that was so strange

04:48that scientists couldn't even agree on what it was for nearly a hundred years.

04:53Some thought it was a giant single-celled amoeba.

04:56Others thought it was a type of lichen, or maybe a failed evolutionary experiment.

05:01This bizarre life form lived about 558 million years ago,

05:05long before dinosaurs, sharks, or even insects showed up.

05:10After many years of studies, Australian researchers finally got proof

05:14that Dickinsonia was an animal,

05:16and possibly the oldest one scientists have ever found.

05:20They solved the mystery thanks to really well-preserved fossil fat molecules

05:25stuck in the rock near the White Sea.

05:27These molecules were a type of cholesterol,

05:30the kind of fat found in animal cells.

05:32If cholesterol is present, it almost certainly came from an animal.

05:37Sort of like animal DNA.

05:39Dickinsonia lived millions of years earlier than scientists had previously thought,

05:43and didn't look anything like modern animals.

05:46It had no head, no mouth, no arms, no legs, and definitely no organs.

05:52It was oval-shaped, like a giant pill bug or flattened jelly bean,

05:56with weird ridges running across its body.

05:59Some were tiny, but others grew up to 5 feet long,

06:02the size of a person.

06:04It didn't swim or walk, but was just lying on the seafloor,

06:07soaking up nutrients from the water, or absorbing stuff through its skin.

06:12It was tricky to identify because most fossils came from high-pressure rock,

06:16where heat had destroyed all the delicate organic stuff scientists needed to study.

06:21To get to the good fossils, researchers had to rappel down 300-foot cliffs,

06:26dig out huge blocks of sandstone, throw them down, wash them,

06:30and then repeat the process.

06:32And inside, one of those sandstone slabs was the fossil that changed everything.

06:38That helped finally confirm that Dickinsonia was an animal,

06:42which proves that complex animal life existed before the Cambrian diversification,

06:47where tons of new animals with bones, eyes, and limbs suddenly appeared.

06:53Scientists think the spot where they found these fossils

06:55might hold more clues about ancient life.

06:59For a long time, scientists had no clue what other group of ancient life forms,

07:04slime molds, were.

07:06These weird jelly-like blobs that pulse and ooze on rotten logs and forest floors

07:11aren't fungi-like mushrooms, though people thought they were for years.

07:15It turns out they're more like amoebas,

07:18squishy, single-celled organisms that can move around.

07:21There are over 900 species of slime molds all over the world.

07:26You'll find them in soil, leaf litter, and especially on decaying wood.

07:31Scientists found them trapped in amber from 100 million years ago.

07:35And it looks just like modern slime molds.

07:38Scientists still know very little about how slime molds interact with other species,

07:43what role they play in ecosystems,

07:45or how they think without a brain, nerves, or a control center.

07:49But, somehow, they can make decisions and adapt to their surroundings.

07:54It makes them a lot like social insects, like ants or bees,

07:58where no single bug is in charge,

08:00but the colony still works together as a smart group.

08:03Even without brains, scientists have trained slime molds to solve mazes

08:08just by responding to chemicals and learning from their environment.

08:12One way these organisms learn is through a process called habituation.

08:16It's sort of like how you get used to cold water after jumping in a lake

08:20or stop noticing an annoying buzzing noise after a few minutes.

08:24That's your brain helping you tune out something harmless.

08:27Some slime molds can do this too.

08:30If they get in nasty conditions, like salty, dry, acidic environments or chemicals,

08:35they'll avoid them at first.

08:37But if there's food on the other side,

08:39they'll eventually get used to it and push their way through.

08:42And if you let slime mold go dormant and wake up a year later,

08:47it still remembers how to deal with salt.

08:50They even seem to be able to decide where to go

08:53based on where they found food in the past.

08:56With more and more unknown species discoveries,

08:59scientists can paint a better picture of Earth's biological past.

09:03That's it for today.

09:07So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,

09:10then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

09:12Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.

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