4 ms·
Sad news, but while Pando is definitely one of the largest organisms on Earth, far larger is a single fungal colony in eastern Oregon that covers 964 hectares[1
by blacksmith_tb 8y ago
Sad news, but while Pando is definitely one of the largest organisms on Earth, far larger is a single fungal colony in eastern Oregon that covers 964 hectares[1]
1: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-...
- Retric 8y agoDepends on how you measure it. Volume, width, wet weight vs dry weight, energy flows, number of living cells, etc. Fungus covers a large area, but each strand is rather tiny.
- briankelly 8y agoIn this case, the title is exact in a subtle way: Pando is the largest known organism by mass, but there are only estimates on the mass of the fungal colony.
- blacksmith_tb 8y agoSure, though it isn't like we've weighed Pando either - I would say we just have better estimates of its mass (and of course "largest" is ambiguous as to whether it means area or mass here).
- briankelly 8y agoRight, but both the title and the body of the article use the unambiguous "most massive" not "largest."
- heurist 8y agoAnother giant Fungus exists in Michigan: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/humongous-fungus https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/humongous-fungus