• Question: what is the largest organism in the world?

    Asked by nyancat to Edd, Jess, Zara on 23 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      Hi nyancat,

      According to wikipedia.. it is the Barrier reef – stretches 2,000km!!!!!

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_organisms

      Got more details there 😉 thanks for asking this question – just reading the information on the wikipedia page- lots of interesting facts!

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      Hey nyancat! I’ve got the nyancat song in my head now…

      Wow I didn’t realise it was the Great Barrier Reef! Amazing! My first thought was the largest mammal – the blue whale – but that’s not the biggest organism.

      It’s pretty cool that the biggest organism supports such a big number of other species (1500 marine fish alone!). I’d love to go snorkelling there one day 🙂

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      The largest animal would have to be the blue whale, which is the largest animal we have ever known to exist: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/blue-whale/

      However, this question depends on what you mean by organism. The Great Barrier Reef is effectively one organism – made up of lots of parts. Similarly there are whole forests of trees that are actually all connected and growing from the same root system (so one ‘super tree’). Similarly there is an enormous fungus that runs throughout a forest in America – this had an area of 2,200 acres!
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_organisms

Comments

  • Photo: Jim

    Jim commented on :

    I think the Honey Mushroom (Armillaria ostoyae) deserves the mention as the largest single organism, described by Tom Volk in the article below as, “It’s one set of genetically identical cells that are in communication with one another that have a sort of common purpose or at least can coordinate themselves to do something

    It occupies 2,384 acres (9,647,706 square metres!) of soil in Oregon’s Blue Mountains, and is about 2,400 years old!

    Read more about it here:

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus

    I first learned of this fungus at the University of Wales, Bangor, as there is reported to be a single Honey fungus that occupies most of the valley the university sits on.