An 80-million-year-old fossilized plant discovery publicized on Tuesday is pushing back the origins of some of our favorite modern plants, including coffee and potatoes.
The fossil from California shows that the ancestors of coffee and potatoes somehow survived the cataclysm that killed off the dinosaurs, according to a news release from the University of Kansas. The fossil is linked to some 40,000 species of flowering plants, many of which are part of a normal, healthy, modern diet.
These include coffee, tomatoes, potatoes, and mint, four foods I refuse to live without until I’m forced to by total mismanagement of global food supply chains and the impending social and/or geological apocalypse.
A fossil fruit from California shows ancestors of coffee and potatoes survived cataclysm that killed the dinosaurs https://t.co/GXLuMMPIZk via @physorg_com
— Sherman Bastarache (@SPBastarache) February 10, 2023
“This fossil tells us a really diverse group of flowering plants evolved prior to our original understanding,” Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Brian Atkinson said in the release. “The fossil belongs to a group of lianas, which are woody vines that add structural complexity to rainforests. It shows us this group of flowering plants appeared super early in the fossil record. There’d been some hypotheses that they were around in the Cretaceous period — but no good clear evidence. This is a great indicator that structurally complex, modern-type rainforests may have been around as early as 80 million years ago.”
The research contributes to growing fields of evidence (pun massively intended) supporting the steady evolutionary transition of physical geographies from coniferous forests to flowering landscapes some time during the Late Cretaceous period, KU continued in its release. (RELATED: Dear Kay: I Watched ‘Ancient Apocalypse’ And Now I’m Scared We’re Going To Die Before 2025)
Considering that the asteroid that created the Chicxulub crater off the Yucatan Peninsula turned dinosaurs into chickens, it’s pretty cool that the ancestor of some of the world’s favorite foods somehow survived this devastation. It just makes one question how many incredible foods have developed and died out on this planet before we showed up and created crap like Starbucks.