European Knight
02-12-2015, 02:49 PM
http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article10040863.ece/alternates/w620/amberfossil-v2.jpg
Dinosaurs 'got high on psychedelic fungus', fossil discovery reveals The discovery of a 100 million-year-old fossilised fungus which had 'poisonous and mind-altering' effects has revealed the possibility that dinosaurs...got high.
A preserved piece of ergot, a psychedelic fungus which grew on top of a grass spikelet, has been found in a hunk of amber in Burma – and researchers say that it may well have been nibbled by the prehistoric animals. In the 2015 issue of the scientific journal Palaeodiversity, lead study author George Poinar Jr., a zoology professor at Oregon State University, said that the findings establish "for sure" that grasses like this "were in the Old World 100 million years ago", Live Science reported, rather than evolving after dinosaurs disappeared.
“It seems like ergot has been involved with animals and humans almost forever, and now we know that this fungus literally dates back to the earliest evolution of grasses,” Mr Poinar Jr said. “This is an important discovery that helps us understand the timeline of grass development, which now forms the basis of the human food supply in such crops as corn, rice or wheat.
"But it also shows that this parasitic fungus may have been around almost as long as the grasses themselves, as both a toxin and natural hallucinogen."There’s no doubt in my mind that it would have been eaten by sauropod dinosaurs, although we can’t know what exact effect it had on them."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/dinosaurs-got-high-on-psychedelic-fungus-fossil-discovery-reveals-10040628.html
Dinosaurs 'got high on psychedelic fungus', fossil discovery reveals The discovery of a 100 million-year-old fossilised fungus which had 'poisonous and mind-altering' effects has revealed the possibility that dinosaurs...got high.
A preserved piece of ergot, a psychedelic fungus which grew on top of a grass spikelet, has been found in a hunk of amber in Burma – and researchers say that it may well have been nibbled by the prehistoric animals. In the 2015 issue of the scientific journal Palaeodiversity, lead study author George Poinar Jr., a zoology professor at Oregon State University, said that the findings establish "for sure" that grasses like this "were in the Old World 100 million years ago", Live Science reported, rather than evolving after dinosaurs disappeared.
“It seems like ergot has been involved with animals and humans almost forever, and now we know that this fungus literally dates back to the earliest evolution of grasses,” Mr Poinar Jr said. “This is an important discovery that helps us understand the timeline of grass development, which now forms the basis of the human food supply in such crops as corn, rice or wheat.
"But it also shows that this parasitic fungus may have been around almost as long as the grasses themselves, as both a toxin and natural hallucinogen."There’s no doubt in my mind that it would have been eaten by sauropod dinosaurs, although we can’t know what exact effect it had on them."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/dinosaurs-got-high-on-psychedelic-fungus-fossil-discovery-reveals-10040628.html