Fungi thrived during mass extinction

Fossil analyses hint that several species made the most of Earth’s largest mass die-off

Microfossils that show up in large quantities in ancient rocks deposited during Earth’s largest mass extinction are fungal spores, not algae as some recent studies had proposed, new research suggests.

DISASTROUS HALLMARK These microfossils, representing the genus Reduviasporonites, are the spores of fungi that proliferated during the mass extinctions at the end of the Permian period 250 million years ago.