What could be bigger? (Image: Getty Images/Minden Pictures)
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There might never be a larger animal than the blue whale, but plants and fungi can dwarf it
As any school child will tell you, the largest known animal now and in evolutionary history is the blue whale. At 30 metres long and weighing up to 190 tonnes, blue whales may be about as big as it is possible for this type of animal to get. Any larger and they would face overheating on exertion, with their metabolism generating heat faster than it could be dissipated through their surface area. The problem is compounded by their thick layer of blubber, essential for insulation when at rest.
While there might never be a larger animal than the blue whale, there are other kinds of organism that dwarf it. The largest of them all, dubbed the “humongous fungus”, is a honey mushroom (Armillaria ostoyae). Although the exact size of the fungus is not known, it is currently munching its way through 965 hectares’ worth of trees in Malheur National Forest in Oregon.
As for plants, the largest of the large today is General Sherman, a giant sequoia in Sequoia National Park, California, which has a trunk volume of around 1500 cubic metres. The tallest living tree is also found in California. Called Hyperion, this coast redwood clocks in at 115 metres. Only one tree has topped that, a fallen eucalyptus called the Robinson tree, found in Mount Baw Baw in Victoria, Australia, which was 143 metres high. Calculations suggest that this is…
