Lichens Through Deep Time

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Lichens over 600 million years, from a possible lichen-like partnership in Ediacaran seas to Devonian fossils showing lichens helped make the first soils. Geological periods, early land plants and the great extinctions set the scene.

Measured in years from Today (Ma 0)

Earth and plants

Lichens

Offsets are measured from Today

Lichens Through Deep Time 13

c. 600 Ma A lichen-like partnership in the sea Doushantuo Formation, China Fungal threads wrapped around algae-like cells in marine phosphorite from southern China. A lichen-like symbiosis, though not proven to be a true lichen.
c. 460 Ma First land plant spores Cryptospores Tiny spores of the first land plants appear in Middle Ordovician rocks, the earliest trace of plants on land.
c. 430 Ma First vascular plants Cooksonia Small branching plants with water-conducting tissue, such as Cooksonia, spread across Silurian land.
419–411 Ma Layered lichens of the Welsh Borderland Early Devonian Fossils from the Welsh Borderland show internally layered lichens with cyanobacteria and with green algae, among the earliest of their kind.
c. 410 Ma Spongiophyton, a widespread early lichen Paraná Basin, Brazil A crust-like organism common across cold, high-latitude Gondwana. Synchrotron imaging in 2025 showed fungal and algal networks inside, confirming it as a lichen that helped build early soils.
c. 407 Ma Winfrenatia in the Rhynie chert Scotland A crustose lichen with cyanobacteria in pits on its surface, preserved cell by cell in the hot-spring chert of Rhynie.
c. 390 Ma The first forests Middle Devonian Tree-sized plants form the first known forests, a few tens of millions of years after lichens were already common.
252 Ma The Great Dying End-Permian extinction The largest mass extinction in Earth history wipes out most species on land and in the sea.
c. 165 Ma Daohugouthallus, the oldest leafy lichen Inner Mongolia, China A foliose lichen growing on a conifer branch, the oldest known lichen living on a plant. Lacewings of the same beds mimicked it to hide from predators.
66 Ma End of the dinosaurs Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction An asteroid impact ends the Cretaceous. Molecular dating suggests many living families of leafy and shrubby lichens diversified after it.
50–35 Ma Lichens in Baltic amber European amber forests Resin from northern European forests traps lichens that look much like living ones. A 2017 study found 152 new fossil lichens in this amber, raising the known total from 15 to 167.
c. 16 Ma Lichens in Dominican amber Miocene Caribbean Caribbean amber preserves lichens that can be placed in living genera.
Today Lichens today About 20,000 species Lichens grow from deserts to polar rock and tree bark, recycle nutrients, make soil and are used to monitor air quality.