Earth Was Once a Fungal World, Long Before Plants Existed

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A big troop of Fairy Inkcaps my brother found in my parents’ yard (Philipines), he kindly went fungi hunting for me since it’s so icy here now!

I have always been fascinated by fungi, and that is one reason why I love fungi hunting. Seeing different types in different forms and learning about their biochemical components always stuns me, and I could lose myself just by looking and finding out things about them or making something out of them, either for craft, as medicine, or to enjoy the edible ones as nourishing food and yes, with amazing nutrition.

Just recently, I decided to dig deeper, and I found some pretty interesting information: fungi existed before plants on Earth, which made me admire them even more. These little fungi are so powerful and existed before us, and they might have even prepared the land for us!

In this new 2025 study in Nature Ecology & Evolution, they used more than 100 fungal species, fossils, and some rare gene transfers in order to figure out when the first fungi appeared on Earth. They found that the earliest plants appeared about 500 million years ago, which means that fungi colonised land long before plants. According to the research, fungi appeared on land around 800 to 900 million years ago, which makes them pioneers of terrestrial life.

As these amazing fungi break down materials like soil, rocks, and wood and recycle nutrients, they have created a home for other living things, like plants, to eventually grow and survive. No doubt they played a big role in preparing the environment for us, and they are still doing that today.

To celebrate how amazing they are, here's a flashback to some fungi I found in 2025!