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Largest Living Organism Is A Fungus

Posted by michael on from the as-long-as-it-isn't-among-us dept.

Makarand writes "A single enormous underground fungus found growing in a Canadian forest and estimated to between 2000 and 8500 years old could easily be the largest known living organism on earth. This fungus is believed to have begun its life as a microscopic spore and then grown to cover an area of around an area of 9.65 square kilometers. That it is a single organism was confirmed by collecting samples of the fungus from different parts of the forest and observing their reactions as they were grown together on Petri dishes. Fungal growths have the ability to distinguish their own growths from other fungal individuals."

8 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. It thas been rumored.. by ewhenn · · Score: 3, Funny

    That the guiness book of world records is sponsoring an event to use it to attempt create the worlds largest pizza.

  2. Yes, but how many Volkswagen bugs... by Ieshan · · Score: 4, Funny

    The article does give some very interesting statistics, but I'd be interested to know if any Astronomers can estimate how many Volkswagen Bugs this fungus might occupy...

  3. Um? by addaon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Except of course the fact their method of verification worked at all invalidated it. After all, two separate, unattached pieces of tissue, even if taken the same creature, can hardly be considered to be the same organism. They may be genetically identical copies of each other, but they have the opportunity to develop separately. What verification is their that the giant fungus is not really a couple of dozen, slowly having developed and broken off from the original growth?

    --

    I've had this sig for three days.
    1. Re:Um? by PurpleFloyd · · Score: 4, Informative
      No, but separate cells in a mushroom or slime mold are. The important thing is that each cell can communicate with its neighbors, and has some role to play in a larger system. Also, it would have to communicate intracellularly, or it could never reproduce. That's the Central Dogma of molecular biology: DNA->RNA->proteins. Any organism which lacked intracellular communication would die almost immediately.

      Even assuming you meant "intercellular," however, the story mentioned that the cells responded differently towards each other than they did towards "outsiders." If this is the case, then the cells must have some form of communication with the outside world, and with each other. Ergo, it's a single organism, since the cells communicate. Whether it's a fungus doesn't matter; whether it has cells that communicate with each other does.

      --

      That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
  4. Aspen Trees by asdfx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It was my understanding that the largest living organism may be an Aspen forest. Aspens reproduce through runners, so it is possible that an entire aspen forest can actually be one organism. I'm sure you can find aspen forests larger than 10 square kilometers, but of course there could be many different plants there. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if it were the oldest.

  5. Standard units people! by Sentry21 · · Score: 3, Funny

    From the article:

    The clone of Armillaria ostoyae--the tree-killing fungus that causes Armillaria root disease--covers an area of 9.65 square kilometres, about the size of 6000 hockey rinks or 1600 football fields.

    Talk about frustrating. Hockey rinks? Football fields? I thought the standard unit of area was olympic-sized swimming pools now. Can journalists just not keep up?

    --Dan

  6. It used to be a fungus, now it's a bigger fungus by DeadSea · · Score: 3, Informative
    I recall having read about the discovery of a huge fungus several year ago. That one must have been a different organism as the page I linked to says its in Oregon. Interestingly, this page gives credit for the largest fungus found in 1992 in Washington state.

    At the time of the original large fungus discoveries, I recall that the largest living organism was considered to be a tree. Actually, grove of aspen trees that all shared the same roots.

    When the aspen trees were discovered, they replaced some giant sequoia which had long been considered both the largest and fastest growing organism on earth.

  7. Canadian/American unit conversion by jakedata · · Score: 3, Funny

    This article shed some light on a different subject as well.

    The typical American unit of area, the football field converts to the Canadian (metric?) unit of area, the hockey rink with a ratio of 6000hr/1600ff or 3.75 to 1

    Very helpful information.