Talk:Prototaxites

"John Hooker"

"John Hooker" is appearing in the current media coverage of the mislaid fossils. Is my edit to Joseph Dalton Hooker correct? Please vet my edit.--Wetman (talk) 01:31, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

19th reference

The 19th reference for this article has a DOI link to a corrigendum to the article, not to the article (or abstract) itself.--Quisqualis (talk) 21:34, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Notability and relevence

@DGtal: Other then using the name and a vague concept of fungal Mycelium, what makes the ST Discovery reference both notable and relevant to this article on the fossil genus? Mention of a taxon and use in media is not, in and of itself considered notable by wiki standards, if there is no third party coverage of that specific usage and its relevance to the taxon. Please do not re-add the pop culture section until discussion happens here.@Apokryltaros: also.--Kevmin § 19:58, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

OK. DGtal (talk) 20:18, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Electron microscopy of a fossil

Have mineral particles gotten a lot smaller since the last time I looked? How is any detail that tiny preserved in a fossil? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.204.139 (talk) 07:13, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

See permineralization. Do you have any suggestions for the improvement of this article here?--Kevmin § 15:50, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Popular culture reference

Prototaxites has been given a prominent the new Star Trek-franchise, Star Trek Discovery on CBS/Netflix. The mycelium of the imaginary species Prototaxites Stellaviatori is used as a transportation method around the universe and to parallel universes. We should probably add a popular culture section to the page.

Lene Johansen (talk) 11:25, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

See previous discussion in #Notability and relevence. DGtal (talk) 12:50, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

References

Dating should be documented

In the beginning of the article it says Prototaxitis ranged from middle Ordivicium to late Devonian, a incredibly large period of time (> 100 my) for any organism and unprecedented for any land based (as far as I know). However I see no references for this long range, with some of the sources only mentioning Devonian aged fossils and only one earlier saying late-Silurian-late Devonian (ref 2). Most articles say 420-370, which is allready an amazingly long period. As dating sediments is always hard and very much more so in terrestial sediments with little or no fossils, I would like to see some evedence for this middle Ordivicium claim. Else the range would have to be changed to late Silurian-late Devonian. Codiv (talk) 13:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Codiv: You mean Ordovician (not Ordivicium), and P. honeggeri is firmly dated as Middle Ordovician, unless you have sources that contradict the Lenoir Limestone dating? Long periods of time are more common the further back you go in the fossil record, so personal incredulity isn't a viable argument. You also have to keep in mind that P. honeggeri was described in 2019, so the older sources WONT mention it, as they didnt know about it when they were written.--Kevmin § 17:14, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Codiv I just changed period to Silurian-Devonian, with just possible range for Ordovician. That new Ordovician species, P. honeggeri, is described by Gregory Retallack, who is good paleobotanist but somewhat disputed about his theory of early land forms (reconstructing Ediacaran biota as lichens for example), so looks like that finding is ignored in studies. As mentioned in article, this study commented that may be misinterpreted. More importantly information about that species and Ordovician origin in this page is added by Retallack himself, it looks like he sometimes do edits in Wikipedia to support his own theory. This page seemed to focus unduly on P. honeggeri (many pictures and species description only for this), so I've fixed that as well. Ta-tea-two-te-to (talk) 15:34, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Whilst traditionally very difficult to assign...

@Kevmin @Apokryltaros

There are actually multiple things wrong with this phrase:

• It's ungrammatical. The subject of the sentence is "current opinion" but the phrase is about "prototaxites".
• "Traditionally very difficult" is a lot more complicated than it needs to be. There's no reason to say "very difficult" and I don't even understand what "traditionally" means here.
• And, yes, "whilst" is archaic and intimidating to the ordinary reader. That's actually the least important issue, since even a more ordinary phrasing "while difficult to assign" would still be ungrammatical.

Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 01:44, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

What about: "There has been immense difficulties and much discussion in assigning Prototaxites to an extant group of organisms throughout the decades: current opinion suggests a fungal placement for the genus."? I feel that "very difficult" is necessary in one form or another, as, trying to decipher what Prototaxites was has been an ongoing headache for paleontologists for over a century. Mr Fink (talk) 02:28, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

OK, but let's try plainer English

The taxonomy of Prototaxites has long been the subject of debate. Currently, it is widely considered a fungus. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 17:36, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Hey, @Kevmin your revert prompted this discussion. If you're not going to comment, I'm going to go with the above text. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 15:48, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

The above wording by Apokryltaros an okay alternative which give more nuance. I dont feel that oversimplification is acceptable as even the fungal placement has problems per current literature and the placement ofthe 2019 species as P. honeggeri has been criticized.--Kevmin § 16:00, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I want to side with Kevmin, if only because oversimplification will introduce misinformation, or cause important nuance to be lost, especially since Prototaxites's identity is still an ongoing topic. Perhaps instead of "Currently, it is widely considered to be a fungus," "It is currently considered to be a fungus"?--Mr Fink (talk) 22:06, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

"Oversimplification" implies that I'm leaving stuff out. What am I leaving out? Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 22:25, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

That the discussion about Prototaxites' identity as a fungus is still ongoing, if not conclusive. Mr Fink (talk) 02:32, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

The taxonomy of Prototaxites has long been the subject of debate. Currently, it is widely considered a fungus, but the debate is ongoing. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 19:31, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

If you have further objections, let's hear them. Otherwise I'm going to go with the above. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 14:41, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

This is fine by me, then. Mr Fink (talk) 14:57, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

It will due as a compromise wording.--Kevmin § 15:31, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

preprint rejecting fungal assignment, now published at ScienceAdvances

A preprint from March 2025 rejects the identification of Prototaxites as a fungus based on examination of chemical markers in fossils of P. taitii and other elements of the Rhynie Chert biota. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:20, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

The Preprint is in biorxiv, which has been deemed an unreliable source by Wikipedia since there is no guarantee of if/where publishing my ever happen. Additionally with an assertion this large, we should be waiting until other researchers have time to publish responses. (No repeats of the "dire wolf cubs")--Kevmin § 15:09, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

@Lavateraguy @Kevmin now published; open access: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aec6277 - MPF (talk) 21:39, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Having given it a read, I have to admit it seems pretty conclusive. The authors (of which there were MANY) were pretty dang thorough in their analysis (unlike the Colossal debacle in which they outright lied to the media about them being dire wolves) and I sit here rather thoroughly convinced. Just my two cents, really. Fascinating read, even if some of the methodology went over my head. D._A.S.C. ^{Talk to me!} 00:15, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Agree that it doesn't seem likely to be a fungus. Interesting topic. Pete Tillman (talk) 14:35, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Here's the news item at Science discussing the new paper: Bizarre 400-million-year-old fossil was an unknown life form, Science News, 21 Jan 2026. Pete Tillman (talk) 14:45, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

We have a peer-reviewed paper now, BUT as I said, we should very much follow wiki-protocol and we should be waiting until other researchers have time to publish responses.. WP:SOURCING still places peer-review in the gray area of alomost primary sourcing, and actively asks that secondary sourcing be presented as well.--Kevmin § 18:31, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

An eLetter referring to this article, has been published in the same journal (Science advances). It shows, that the results of the infrared spectroscopy which were used to conclude that Prototaxites did not contain neither chitin nor cellulose, are based on experimental artifacts. Namely, most of the observed absorption peaks are due to water vapor in the ray path. Therefore, I would propose to delete the sections mentioning this article. Dulohan (talk) 12:28, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

It should be deleted if the article is retracted, but eLetters in Science are a "forum for ongoing peer review" and can be submitted by anyway, so doesn't represent the article itself being retracted. Parasitaxus (talk) 16:40, 3 November 2026 (UTC)

Taxobox

In January 2018 the Taxobox was updated to suggest an affinity to Animalia, a confusing assignment as the organism lives sessile on the ground, (as far as I know) has never had affinities drawn to animals by academics, has no morphological similarities to animals, and (strangest of all) on the same edit the user elaborated that the fossil was fungal. For unclear reasons this edit has persisted for over 6 years, including through 2025 when new research implied an undetermined placement within the Eukaryotes. Because I created this account today (mostly to fix this err) I am unable to edit the taxobox for this page. I suggest somebody with more permissions than me correct this assigment, perhaps to the always reliable Incertae sedis. Booglarizer (talk) 16:15, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

@Booglarizer: The change was made here on 23 January, and the taxobox shows this placement. So I don't understand your request. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:38, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

For some reason, I was (and am) unable to view the history of the taxobox. Not sure why that is. Booglarizer (talk) 17:40, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Nevermind, I think I was just unfamiliar with the feature. Booglarizer (talk) 17:41, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

@Booglarizer: Actually a second change was needed (to Template:Taxonomy/Incertae sedis/Eukaryota), which was only made today, so I was wrong above.

If by "unable to view the history of the taxobox" you mean by viewing the history of the article, it's because automated taxoboxes create their display from separate taxonomy templates. Changing these changes the taxobox, not directly editing it. It's all explained at WP:Automated taxobox system – not a quick read! Peter coxhead (talk) 17:49, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you! Booglarizer (talk) 21:01, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Use of Incertae Sedis

Since the Incertae sedis is at a kingdom level, shouldn't it properly be Incerti regni?

Thanks! Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliomaniac (talk) 23:19, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Incertae sedis ('of uncertain placement', literally 'of uncertain seat') covers all ranks. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:34, 10 March 2026 (UTC)