Which is the largest living organism on earth? Could it be a mushroom?
How do you measure large?
When searching for the largest organism on earth, there are many ways to determine various aspects of the living thing you explore. And we need to agree on what it means.
- It has to be living.
- It has to be one, single organism
- It has to be large.
So, first, let’s determine large.
you have mass, the weight. Something heavier is bigger than something lighter. But a living agent can be very dense or it can be fluffy. Birds are all lighter than land animals. Their volume can be bigger. An adult Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle typically is 25 “ in length (63 cm) and weighs 90 lbs (40 kg). A large Bald Eagle can be 35” in height and have a wingspan of 8 feet (2,44 meters). Still, it only weighs 15 lbs (7 kg). Which is bigger?
Then, you have to decide what distance to measure. A Rottweiler dog is about as big as a Reticulated python, if big is the same as heavy. The python can be over 6 meters in length (20 feet). So, which is bigger?
What is a living organism?
A living organism normally consists of millions of cells of different kinds, working together for the benefit of the total life form. But when do different parts of one single agent become more than one organism?
If you cut down a tree and from the trunk, new shoots eventually become many new trees. Are those one or many?
Sea Anemones can host Algae. It is those who give the anemone its color. The Algae enters the animal and lives in symbiosis with it. Researchers have found that if there are Algae present, the anemone moves towards the light.
Is it one animal? Or is it two? Or many?
Is an anthill one or many? One ant can’t reproduce and it can’t survive for long.
The largest living organism on earth.
So, the largest organism on earth can be many, depending on how you define large.
- The heaviest animal is the Blue Whale. It can reach a length of 98 feet (30 meters) and a weight of 173 metric tons.
- The longest animal is the Lion’s Mane Jellyfish measuring 112 feet (34 meters).
- The biggest single plant is the Giant Sequoias tree. And of those, General Sherman is regarded as the biggest (they have names…). It is 275 feet (84 meters) high, 32,7 feet (10 meters) in diameter, and has a volume of 52.508 cu ft (1.486 m3).
- The biggest plant having the same root is Pando. It is a colony of one single individual of the Quaking Aspen covering 106 acres (43 hectares) in Fishlake National Forest, Utah, USA.
The largest living organism on earth is a mushroom.
The largest organism on earth is a fungus of the species Armillaria. That is if we calculate the surface it covers. It could also be the heaviest living thing on earth… Or maybe I should say, in earth.
The small, round things we pick in the forest and put in the stew, are actually just the reproductive structure of the fungus, the fruit. The mycelium of the living organism is underneath our feet, in the ground. There it spreads out and depending on the type of fungus, it can be big or small.
This particular mushroom, Armillaria Ostoyae, forms a big mycelium… Enormous. In Malheur National Forest in Oregon, USA, there is one that covers an area of 3.4 square miles (8.8 km2). That would be the biggest living organism on earth. It could also be the heaviest with a weight of over 30.000 metric tons.
These are all estimates though. As we can’t examine its extension down there. We actually do not even know if it’s one single fungus, with all parts of the mycelium connected. But if it is, then the Armillaria Ostoyae is by far the largest organism on earth…
And it’s scary. All mushrooms feed on decayed organic matter. Some fungi, instead of feeding on what’s already dead, kill. In that way, they have a constant flow of nutrition that never runs out. And that’s why they can become so big.
They infect the trees with white rot, then they eat them, slowly. Mycelial cords – white long tentacles run from one root to another. It’s like a horror movie.
Fortunately, they don’t attack humans… Not for now.
conclusion
If you define large as volume, and you define volume simply as the distance from one point to another. Not measuring the density of the organism within its spread, then the honey fungus of the species Armillaria Ostoyae in Malheur National Forest in Oregon, USA is the biggest living thing on the planet.
Yes, the largest living thing on earth is a mushroom and it’s called Armillaria Ostoyae
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