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A wide range of carbon isotope values in the Devonian fossil Prototaxites has been interpreted to support heterotrophy and the classification of Prototaxites as a giant fungus. This inference remains controversial because of the huge size of Prototaxites relative to co-occurring terrestrial vegetation and the lack of existing fungal analogues that display equally broad isotopic ranges. Here, we...

The new genus and species, Gondwanascorpio emzantsiensis, are described in Scorpiones incertae se dis on the basis of fragments from the Famennian (Late Devonian) Waterloo Farm locality near Grahams town, Eastern Cape, South Africa. This finding adds to the sparse record of Late Devonian scorpion taxa and provides the first evidence of Palaeozoic scorpions from Gondwana. Material includes a com...

Actinopterygians (ray-finned fishes) are the most diverse living osteichthyan (bony vertebrate) group, with a rich fossil record. However, details of their earliest history during the middle Palaeozoic (Devonian) 'Age of Fishes' remains sketchy. This stems from an uneven understanding of anatomy in early actinopterygians, with a few well-known species dominating perceptions of primitive conditi...

The Devonian marks a critical stage in the early evolution of vertebrates: It opens with an unprecedented diversity of fishes and closes with the earliest evidence of limbed tetrapods. However, the latter part of the Devonian has also been characterized as a period of global biotic crisis marked by two large extinction pulses: a "Big Five" mass extinction event at the Frasnian-Famennian stage b...