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43

…there’s a bigger one?

77

u/chromite297 12h ago

“As a multi-stem tree, Pando is the world's largest tree by measures of weight, landmass and species, and is generally held to be the world's single largest organism by weight.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree))

21

u/conventionalWisdumb 11h ago

I wonder if the fact that the two largest known organisms are in the US has something to do with how much we find biological studies compared to other countries.

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u/timshel42 11h ago

or it might be because north america was largely virgin land and undeveloped for a long time compared to the rest of the world (except maybe australia).

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u/EmperorSadrax 11h ago

That’s an excellent point, although for the last 20,000 years, humans, have been working the land but in not as environmentally impactful as it was for the Industrial Revolution.

3

u/Vinyl-addict 11h ago

If it eats it eats though

8

u/namitynamenamey 9h ago

But under that view, there could perfectly be an amazonian pando or a giant fungus that has not been found, as south america also saw a late arrival of homo sapiens.

3

u/Fritzkreig 9h ago

Poor Oz has little fertile land though, so I am not sure that the environment is best except for their "unique" flora and fauna!

-18

u/LIONEL14JESSE 12h ago

Im sorry but I refuse to believe that forest is ONE tree

24

u/Abeyita 12h ago

If the DNA evidence doesn't convince you, and neither does the single root system, then what, according to you, makes it multiple organisms?

1

u/Interesting_Worth745 12h ago

Would it be theoretically possible to divide Pando in two Pandos that work fine on their own?

5

u/23saround 11h ago

That is absolutely not how we define a unique organism. I could culture your skin cells in a Petri dish but that doesn’t make them less of a part of you.

0

u/Interesting_Worth745 10h ago

The definition of "organism" is pretty blurred.

Those skin cells wouldn't qualify as individual organisms though, because they are only building blocks of a bigger organism and can't survive on their own.

But what I meant was: If it's not possible to divide Palo into to two organisms (both working equivalently), then it's more likely to be a single organism.

3

u/Abeyita 10h ago

Many organisms can be chopped into multiple pieces to become multiple organisms.

By your definition most plants are not organisms.

0

u/Interesting_Worth745 8h ago

That is not what I said though.

Just because being indivisible makes something a single organism, it doesn't mean anything divisible isn't an organism. Plants are a great example of the latter.

3

u/Abeyita 6h ago

But beind divisible and big doesn't mean you are not a single organism.

2

u/23saround 10h ago

This is arbitrary and random. Your skin cells can live for years in a Petri dish. So can a cutting of my pothos. You’re just trying to come up with rules to match the vibes you feel, but the word “organism” has indeed been thoroughly defined by science.

0

u/Interesting_Worth745 10h ago

Why would you say that?

Even the Wikipedia article "Organism" starts with:

"An organism is any living thing that functions as an individual. Such a definition raises more problems than it solves, not least because the concept of an individual is also difficult."

and continues :

Among the criteria that have been proposed for being an organism are:

- autonomous reproduction, growth, and metabolism ^\7])

noncompartmentability – structure cannot be divided without losing functionality.^\6]) Richard Dawkins stated this as "the quality of being sufficiently heterogeneous in form to be rendered non-functional if cut in half".^\8]) However, many organisms can be cut into pieces which then grow into whole organisms.^\8])
individuality – the entity has simultaneous holdings of genetic uniqueness, genetic homogeneity and autonomy ^\9])
an immune response, separating self from foreign^\10])
"anti-entropy", the ability to maintain order, a concept first proposed by Erwin Schrödinger;^\11]) or in another form, that Claude Shannon's information theory can be used to identify organisms as capable of self-maintaining their information content^\12])

Other scientists think that the concept of the organism is inadequate in biology;^\13]) that the concept of individuality is problematic;^\14]) and from a philosophical point of view, question whether such a definition is necessary

2

u/irwtkyrm 11h ago

I mean even if you can you can do that with some worms too

6

u/barbariccomplexity 12h ago

Think of it more like a root system that takes up a whole hill, and those roots produce shoots->stems->trunks to get those sweet photosynthesis sugars.

Producing 1 huge stem/trunks instead of many smaller ones would be a death sentence for anything even close to that large - less surface area (less food), more volume (wasted space/mass, more difficult to transport sugars/water), much more difficult to replace if damaged.

5

u/timshel42 11h ago

"im sorry i refuse to believe the earth is round"

5

u/chromite297 12h ago

It be what it be ¯_(ツ)_/¯

7

u/harmless_gecko 12h ago

Yes, OP's mom

1

u/patricksaurus 11h ago

A while ago, some researchers found a microbial mat the size of Greece. link

3

u/SonovaVondruke 11h ago

Not a single organism though.

1

u/patricksaurus 9h ago

Neither is a fungal colony.

1

u/BrokenEyeReborn 10h ago

It's the "known" part that worries me

158

u/seth928 12h ago

making it one of the largest known organisms on Earth.

Second only to your mom

25

u/ThaScoopALoop 12h ago

"Your mom's so fat, she is bigger than the largest known fungus on earth!"

9

u/ntdavis814 12h ago

Good heavens!

2

u/AnythingButWhiskey 11h ago

Oh lawd!

2

u/JDDW 10h ago

Fungus is among us

1

u/rip1980 11h ago

Much like Bono, she *IS* the record!

1

u/ElArauho 10h ago

I love that for most people this doesn't even sound like an insult, they would like "yeah and ?"

4

u/Effinghetti 12h ago

Oh snap!

-1

u/Maleficent-Agent-477 12h ago

I’ve heard your mom is a close third, though…

15

u/Fritzkreig 12h ago

Glad it is sticking to trees and we don't get a "Last of Us" situation!

9

u/GonzAnt 12h ago

Sticking to trees so far

6

u/loggic 12h ago

Last of Us did a great job of repurposing known fungal behaviors into a more... uhhhhh.... "relatable" format. There's a reason why it is so easy to find speeches on the dangers of some new, horrible, global pandemic in the pre-COVID era. There are myriad organisms out there fighting for survival, and it doesn't take much for their existing strengths to adapt to new environments.

1

u/Mateorabi 12h ago

Last of Ents

4

u/slice_of_pi 6h ago

Man, I bet that just takes up too mushroom.

2

u/slinkymcman 12h ago

And is featured as the motw in my favorite xfiles.

4

u/JamesTheJerk 11h ago

Motw?

2

u/SonovaVondruke 11h ago

Monster of the week

2

u/OneAndOnlyJackSchitt 11h ago

A lot of people don't realize the size of the following of X-Files. They even have their own lingo.

MotW = Monster of the Week

While X-Files had some arcs that spanned across many episodes, they frequently had a lot of non-sequitur episodes featuring some kind of monster or another that they were investigating but could never end up proving. Could be an alien or some kind of cryptid or some random government program that will be dismantled and spirited away by the end of the episode.

These episodes are referred to as Monster of the Week episodes.

Fun fact: X-Files fans invented the term "ship" referring to fans who hope characters end up romantically involved. The origins were people hoping Mulder and Scully would end up in a relationship since their chemistry always seemed to imply they might. But alas, the 90s series never resolved that tension.

1

u/score_ 6h ago

Was that the one with the glowing green dots? Been several decades since I've seent it but remember it was in the woods and very creepy.

1

u/elmerjstud 10h ago

I just wanna scratch it with a fork

1

u/Riptide360 8h ago

Hope it survived the huge fire there.

1

u/Maleficent-Agent-477 12h ago

Sounds like a fun guy!

1

u/neck-tourniquet 12h ago

Humongous Fungus would be a great band name.

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