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The largest organism found on Earth can be measured using a variety of different methods. It could be defined as the largest by volume, mass, height, or length. Some creatures group together to form a superorganism, though this cannot truly be classed as one large organism.
Largest species
Animals
- Mammals (Mammalia)
- Blue Whales (Balaenoptera musculus) are believed to be the largest animal ever to have lived, with lengths of up to 30 m (100 feet) and wights of up to 140 tonnes (150 short tons) or more. The largest fish is the whale shark, recorded accurately to be up to 12 m long, with unofficial accounts of 18 m.
- The Savannah Elephant (Loxodonta africana) is the largest living land mammals. At birth it is common for an elephant calf to weigh 100 kg (225 pounds). The largest elephant ever recorded was shot in Angola in 1974. It was a male and weighed 12,000 m (26,400 pounds).
- By |order:
- Bats (Chiroptera). The largest bat is the giant golden-crowned flying fox, a rare fruit bat and endangered species that is part of the megabat family.
- Scaly anteaters (Pangolin). The largest species of scaly anteaters is the Giant Pangolin.
- Rodents (Rodentia). The largest living rodent is the capybara, native to most of the tropical and temperate parts of South America east of the Andes, always near water. Full-grown capybaras reach between 105 and 135 cm in length, and weigh 35 to 65 kg.
- Primates. The Eastern Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri) subspecies is the largest living primate; males weigh about 180 kg (400 pounds) in the wild and are can be much much heavier in captivity.
Birds. The largest bird is the Ostrich (Struthio camelus), reaching a height of up to 2.5 m (8 feet). Eggs laid by the Ostrich can weigh 1.3 kg and are the largest eggs in the world today (and are also the largest single cell of any organism).
Reptiles. The largest reptile is the saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), with adult males being typically 4.5–5 m long, although exceptionally large crocodiles may surpass 6 m (19 feet) in length and weigh up 1000 kg (2200 pounds). Average-sized males weigh around 450 kg. Females are much smaller than males, with typical female body lengths in the range of 2.5–3 m.
Cnidaria. The lion's mane jellyfish is the largest cnidaria species, with some attaining a bell diameter of 2.5 m (8 feet) and tentacles as long as 30.5 m (100 feet) or more.
Plants
The Giant Sequoia is the world's largest tree in terms of total volume. They grow to an average height of 70-85 m (230-280 ft) and 5-7 m (16-23 ft) in diameter. Record trees have been reported to be 93.6 m (307 ft) in height and 8.85 m (29 ft) in diameter; the largest individual is the General Sherman tree, with a volume of 1489 m³. Although not so large in volume, the closely related Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is taller, reaching a maximum height of 112.83 m.
The Giant Sequoia is a conifer, as are the next four or five largest plant species. The largest flowering plant (angiosperm) is Eucalyptus regnans which can reach heights over 92 m . The largest flower belongs to the species Rafflesia arnoldii, with a diameter of nearly a meter and a weight up to 11 kg.
Fungi
The largest fungus may be a honey fungus of the species Armillaria ostoyae. One genetically constant mycelium has been found over an area of more than 8.9 km² (3.4 square miles), though it is unlikely that it is a true single organism with all parts of the mycelium connected.
Microorganisms
The largest bacterium ever discovered is Epulopiscium fishelsoni, found in the gut of surgeon fish in the Red Sea. At 0.5 mm it is visible to the naked eye and up to a million times the size of typical bacterium. The largest virus is the mimivirus, with mature particles of 400 nm in diameter (icosahedral capsid), 800,000 bases and 900 genes. Later research suggested that it could be up to 800 nm long, 1.2 Mbp and 1260 genes.
Extinct creatures
Some of the largest organisms ever to have existed have now died out. Most of them dinosaurs, the creatures grew to enormous sizes. The tallest and heaviest dinosaur known from a complete skeleton is the Brachiosaurus (now Giraffatitan) which was discovered in Tanzania between 1907–1912, and is now mounted in the Humboldt Museum of Berlin. It is 12 m (38 ft) tall, and probably weighed between 30,000–60,000 kg (30–65 tons). The longest is the 27 m (89 ft) long Diplodocus which was discovered in Wyoming, and mounted in Pittsburgh's Carnegie Natural History Museum in 1907.
There are bigger dinosaurs, but they are known from only a small handful of bones. The current record holders all date from the 1970s or later, and include the massive Argentinosaurus, which may have weighed 80,000–100,000 kg (90–110 tons); the longest, the 40 m (130 ft) long Supersaurus; and the tallest, the 18 m (60 ft) Sauroposeidon, which could have reached into a 6th-floor window.
The largest flightless bird was the Dromornis stirtoni, measuring three metres tall and weighing half a tonne. The Leedsichthys, from the Jurassic period (165-155 million years ago), is thought to have been the largest fish to have ever lived, with estimates of some growing to 20-22 m (66 to 72 feet) in length.
The largest extinct land mammal is Baluchitherium, a species of hornless rhinoceros from southern Asia.
The largest extinct rodent is Phoberomys pattersoni, an extinct rodent who lived in the Orinoco River delta about 8 million years ago. An almost complete skeleton of the giant rodent was discovered in Venezuela in 2000; it was 3 m long, with an additional 1.5 m tail, and probably weighed around 700 kg.