Spotlight DOI: 10.2110/palo.2010.S03 SPOTLIGHT PALEOMYCOLOGY: THE REDISCOVERY OF THE OBVIOUS

While savoring your double mushroom pizza or contemplating the increasing number of mold spots on your bathroom wall, have you ever wondered how these organisms evolved and how long they have been around? Well, we have, and constantly do! Surprisingly, however, obtaining satisfying answers to these questions is difficult. Molecular-clock estimates have greatly varied as to the origin of the fungi (e.g., Heckman et al., 2001; Taylor and Berbee, 2006). Likewise the fossil record has been inconclusive with regard to the origin of the fungi and is astonishingly incomplete relative to the evolutionary history of the various fungal lineages. While the molecular-clock inconsistencies appear to be related to methodological approaches and the data sets used, the paucity of the fossil record is largely due to a lack of attention of the paleontological community to fungal remains, at least in the past. The apparent lack of interest by paleontologists in fossil fungi is even more perplexing if one considers that fungi are major drivers i