** \[ up: [[Life (Biology)]] – [[Devonian period]] – [[Fungi]] ]** --- # Prototaxites > “These living spires were scattered across the landscape \[400 million years ago, in the Devonian period]. Many were taller than a two-storey building. Nothing else got anywhere close to this size: plants existed but where no more than a metre tall, and no animal with a backbone had yet moved out of the water. small insects made their homes in the giant trunks, chewing out rooms and corridors. This enigmatic group of organisms — thought to have been enormous [[fungi]] — were the largest living structures on dry land for at least 40 million years, twenty times longer than the genus *[[Homo (Genus)|Homo]]* has existed.”[^1] [^1]: Merlin Sheldrake, *[[Sheldrake. 'Entangled Life', 2021.|Entangled Life]]* (UK: Vintage, 2021), p. 4.