Most scientists agree that life migrated from the oceans to land about 500 or 450 million years ago.
But for plants and animals could survive, needed nutrients.
and it is believed that a thinner body than human and very much like a fungus, hair was among the first inhabitants out of water .
the fossil of the fungus, which dates back some 440 million years ago, spent his life underground, rotting matter.
Even the scientist who analyzed it, Dr. Martin Smith admits it is a “humble little mushroom”.
But this pioneer, known as Tortotubus , could help explain how early creatures colonized a land rocky and barren .
this fungus was the one who started this process to obtain nitrogen and oxygen from the rudimentary land.
Smith, who conducted the research in the Cambridge university, but he is now in Durham -. not rule out that there probably existed some kind of bacteria and algae, but this is difficult to know because rarely preserved as fossils
This makes Tortotubus the oldest fossil ever found a body on land.
“ is (in fact) the first fossil of an organism only lived in soil “Smith told the BBC.
“It must have decomposed dead material and basically podrirlo”.
many parts of the planet, such as Sweden and Scotland , found fossils of fungi.
But this microfossils is thinner than a human hair and rope- like structure is like that of mushrooms we see today.
Scientists believe that this primitive organism contributed to the composting and in the process of putrefaction, which paved the way for bloom plants , grow trees and later animals .
“During the period when there were these organisms, life was virtually restricted to the oceans, had not yet evolved anything as complex as a simple moss and plants and lichens, “Smith said.
” But before they could flourish plants or trees, or animals that depend on it, was necessary to establish the process of putrefaction and composting “.
Smith’s study was published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society .
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