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birdienlWhen people are asked what the largest organism on the planet is, most will answer the blue whale or some dinosaur. Not many of you were thinking of something as a fungus or a tree, right?
Still, it is the honey fungus Armillaria ostoyae and the quaking aspen Populus tremuloides who battle for the title of largest living organism!
Pando (Latin for 'I spread') is a colony of aspen trees in Fishlake National Forest in Utah. By researchers these colony was determined as one single living organism, linked by a massive underground root system and probably up to 80.000 years old (which causes 'Pando' to be also in the race for oldest living organism!) The colonly encompasses 43 hectares (103 acres) and has around 47.000 stems, who continually die and are replaced from the root system.
However, in 2003 a large fungal colony in Malheur National Forest in Oregon was described by scientists, which rivals the 'Pando's' claim. The colony, growing from hyphae underground, spans 2200 acres of area. The organism is estimated to be around 2400 years old and the total mass might be as large as 605 tons!
As it is hard to measure these things, it might very well be there are other, even larger colonies of trees or fungi in the world, but these numbers are already very impressive!
Still, it is the honey fungus Armillaria ostoyae and the quaking aspen Populus tremuloides who battle for the title of largest living organism!
Pando (Latin for 'I spread') is a colony of aspen trees in Fishlake National Forest in Utah. By researchers these colony was determined as one single living organism, linked by a massive underground root system and probably up to 80.000 years old (which causes 'Pando' to be also in the race for oldest living organism!) The colonly encompasses 43 hectares (103 acres) and has around 47.000 stems, who continually die and are replaced from the root system.
However, in 2003 a large fungal colony in Malheur National Forest in Oregon was described by scientists, which rivals the 'Pando's' claim. The colony, growing from hyphae underground, spans 2200 acres of area. The organism is estimated to be around 2400 years old and the total mass might be as large as 605 tons!
As it is hard to measure these things, it might very well be there are other, even larger colonies of trees or fungi in the world, but these numbers are already very impressive!
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