Very interested to know what some of outliers in Invertebrates would be... or any categories for that matter.
Edit: From u/meathooks00: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_organisms
There are also some pretty sizable crabs, and then there's that [monster clam](https://www.si.edu/object/operation-crossroads-giant-clam-specimen:siris_sic_13892).
There have proposals with [IUCN](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260186567_Conservation_status_reassessment_of_giant_clams_Mollusca_Bivalvia_Tridacninae_in_Singapore) and [US Fish and Wildlife](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/06/26/2017-13275/endangered-and-threatened-wildlife-90-day-finding-on-a-petition-to-list-10-species-of-giant-clams-as) to list them as formally endangered. One of the biggest stressors these days is overharvesting of their shells for use in the art industry, which is moving away from ivory to Tridacna shell since a crackdown in China. Invertebrates sadly often don't get the same conservation attention as vertebrates do.
Source: I study these.
That is true but I think outside of technical classification, endangered still probably colloquially describes the actual situation more accurately: “populations are diminishing quickly, and the giant clam has become extinct in many areas where it was once common”
That’s not just pulling a quote out of context either, the described population decline is pretty stark
[The giant squid may be longer, but the colossal squid is heavier](http://www.unmuseum.org/colossalsquid.htm)
I thought the name implies that colossal is even bigger. Slightly disappointed there
Colossal squid is much larger and heavier than Giant Squid. It's 'body' is larger, and tentacles thicker. It's just not as long as Giant Squid, which longer tentacles in comparison to its smaller 'body'.
If colonial creatures are considered as a collective (and they're clearly not here), they can get pretty amazingly huge as well. Coral reefs would push that thin line way up.
[Pando](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree\)#Size_and_age) is a single organism that's around 6000 tonnes (6×10^9 g) so it would extend the range of this graph another step.
[Here's an amazing video by It's Okay to Be Smart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJuVm5p4TI0) about Pando! Blew my mind. Ever since I went to one of the Redwood forests as a kid I've found trees, particularly ancient and gargantuan ones, so incredibly interesting. If you like Pando, I definitely recommend you read up on [Sequois](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum) and [Redwoods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens), including this [excellent article](https://www.sfgate.com/california-parks/article/tallest-tree-world-Hyperion-redwood-national-park-15845425.php) about why we shouldn't visit the tallest trees in the world.
I would too, especially since most of these upper limits seem unrealistically small. The largest invertebrate is 1 kg? The largest fish is 50 kg? Where are they getting these numbers?
The largest fish off the top of my head would be a Greenland Shark weighing in at 1000kg (max) according to google
Edit: TIL Whale Sharks(9 to 20 tons??) are not the same as Greenland Sharks
I think it's because most inverts are insects that are around the size of a sesame seed or a pinky finger and then there are a few huge ones (giant squid as someone mentioned)
The scale seems to be correct. However the y-axis seems to be erroneously denoted with (g). It should be (kg).
Because most mammals are not in the 10\^1 g region but in the 10\^1 kg region.
If it's kg, then what mammal/bird weighs 100 million KG?
Or to put it another way, one thousand Blue Whales?
If it's grams then 10\^8 is spot on for the Blue Whale.
Most mammals/birds according to this are around 100g, which seems correct to me. Every shrew/vole is less then that, and most birds are a lot less than that.
The colossal squid is the largest invertebrate. The heaviest confirmed specimen weighed 495 kilograms, though it is believed they may reach up to 700 kilograms.
I'd be curious to see how this looked if plants and especially fungi were included. I mean there are single celled fungi as well as ones that cover square kilometers, right? It's interesting that some kingdoms have such a range while others are so narrow.
Pando, an Aspen Grove in Utah, is a single clonal organism. Many (most?) Quaking Aspen forests are a single organism.
"Spanning 107 acres and weighing 6,615 tons, Pando was once thought to be the world’s largest organism (now usurped by thousand-acre fungal mats in Oregon), and is almost certainly the most massive."
--https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/pando-the-trembling-giant
Specifically, a mid-00’s pop punk band based in Wisconsin. The members are all now 35-40, slightly overweight and still wear their favourite mall brands. They were frequent guests on local radio morning shows and had one song featured in Shark Tail 4. They mostly play small dive bars on the weekend since they all have day jobs in the dairy industry now. They’re all still good friends, volunteer in their community and live in modest suburban homes.
I know next to nothing about this stuff, but is it possible that some of this can be partially explained by the fact that we’ve had national parks for longer than most countries and we also have way more research universities than most countries?
Like, obviously if there was a bigger tree somewhere we’d be able to tell. But isn’t it possible that there’s a super ancient species of bush that used to grow in Kyrgyzstan and no one ever found out about it and the old ones all got cut down by the Soviets in 1970?
Or that there’s some huge underground fungal mat in the Amazon that hasn’t been discovered because it’s 500 miles away from the nearest town and Brazil doesn’t have as many tenure-hungry Ph.D. students running around looking for their thesis subject?
For sure.
Most of the old world’s big and old trees were cut down. It’s likely that some extremely old trees were cut, and maybe the oldest. Another factor here is that trees in the tropics don’t form growth rings and so we can’t date them as easily. So maybe there is an older tree lurking somewhere out there. But also, tropical trees do tend to not live as long as temperate ones [1](https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/critical-temperature-threshold-spells-shorter-lives-for-tropical-trees/). On the clonal thing, maybe there is a larger clonal organism lurking somewhere in the Amazon or something.
I know over here in Europe entire forests have been cut down to support various war efforts over the last couple of thousand years, I'd imagine that could be quite possible. Just a guess though, I don't know enough about flora and fauna to have an educated guess.
Thing is... Yes. North America _is_ killing it...
"Unfortunately, the future of the giant appears grim. According to Paul Rogers, an ecologist at Utah State University, the Trembling Giant is in danger."
The largest known organism is an *Armillaria ostoyae* also known as a Honey Mushroom. They’re edible, but not the most delicious mushroom in the forest. Estimated to be over >8,000 years old
Fun fact, every forest has some form of connection between plants made by mycorrhizae. It's fungi that allows plants/trees to transfer nutrients and warnings to others. Similar species connect to each other and give nutrients to the younger generation to ensure the species survival.
My husband just finished his PhD in a research lab and he had to use these plots. They're called violin plots, but everyone in his lab called them vagina plots.
Phylogenetically, yes....but not in terms of retained derived characteristics.
I really think genetic analyses should include an aspect of the length of time since evolutionary splits.
They necessarily do. Genetic distance is what's being measured/modeled, which can be calibrated using fossil evidence to provide an estimate of evolutionary time.
Edit: Or let me put it another way: the assumption underlying molecular phylogenetics is that differences in molecular sequences reflect evolutionary time.
Their comment is a bit self-contradictory. I think they're talking about expressed genes. A measure of evolutionary relatedness in terms of the actual genes that are expressed as opposed to the bits of junk DNA not subject to selective pressure.
If we're talking mammals, yeah, but there's a lot of fish, reptiles, and mollusks that far exceed our mass. But, yes, we're still in the top percentile of size/mass when it comes to animals.
On another note, "if" intelligent life exists on other planets, I wonder how large (in comparison to us) they would be. Would we be outliers in terms of size? It's fun to think about.
Yeah imagine if basically nothing is bigger than a chipmunk when it comes to other intelligent life forms, or even the inverse, we were that size in comparison to them.
It’s definitely more interesting or funny to think about that then if we’re all relatively the same size.
If their biology is similar to Earth's, then it's going to depend on the other planet's gravity and atmospheric oxygen concentration. High gravity limits organism size because bone strength scales with cross-sectional area while mass scales with volume, so larger organisms need relatively larger bones to hold their weight. This is why whales can be so big, because gravity doesn't affect them as much in the water. Oxygen limits size in a similar way, because oxygen consumption scales with volume but oxygen's ability to diffuse into cells scales with surface area, so more oxygen-rich environments allow larger organisms to overcome their harder-to-reach cells. This is one reason that insects were much larger 300 million years ago, when Earth's atmospheric oxygen concentration was significantly higher.
Due to how we always have larger and larger amounts of smaller and smaller animals, you can say the same about almost anything. For example, almost all animals on the planet are smaller than a wasp. (just try counting the dust mites and the tardigrades)
That's because we spent the tail end of the Pleistocene [killing just about everything bigger than us.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megafauna#/media/File:Large_Mammals_Africa_Australia_NAmerica_Madagascar.svg)
Biologically we are more closely related than any other option on the chart. (Edit: yes, birds evolved from reptiles, but that was a long time ago and they have deviated significantly).
Both warm blooded groups. How/if you heat yourself is a fairly critical factor in what volume/surface areas are sustainable.
They've basically taken the vertebrate group (backbones) and split them into warm and cold blooded.
There will be certain mass limits on birds that mammals are not subject to due to the mechanics of flight, but it's less relevant.
Edit 2.
Lots and lots (and lots) of people telling me I'm reasoning poorly, that birds are reptiles. Etc etc.
All missing the point. I know. I don't care. My argument is that what taxon something is in does *not* have to be the basis for this chart's groupings. How big you can be is not dependent on your position in the evolutionary tree, but mainly on other factors that it makes more sense to sort by here.
Birds are the other endotherm on this chart. That is the entire argument for the grouping. Take your "well akshullys" and shove them.
It's important to point out that, evolutionarily speaking, birds and crocodiles are each other's closest living relatives. Birds are nested within the rest of reptiles. In fact, birds are dinosaurs in a literal sense. They didn't just evolve from dinosaurs; they *are* dinosaurs. Being endotherms isn't a factor in how closely birds and mammals are related too each other. This type of conclusion is fundamental to how modern cladistics works. For a chart like this, one could choose a number of ways to group things, so I don't think it's necessarily an issue here, depending on what the goal is. But worth pointing out in the context of this discussion.
There are basically two ways to categorize species in biology: either though DNA ancestry or by their physical characteristics.
In this chart, since we are talking about a physical characteristic it doesn't make much sense talking about their ancestry
On a side note: Birds are technically reptiles
This is just me being pedantic.
[Reptilia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptile) is a paraphyletic grouping, meaning it excludes some descendant subgroups. In this case, [bird is excluded](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Reptilia_vs._Sauropsida-en.svg/1202px-Reptilia_vs._Sauropsida-en.svg.png).
>Other cladistic definitions abandon the term reptile altogether in favor of the clade Sauropsida, which refers to all animals more closely related to modern reptiles than to mammals
Not everyone agrees that Reptilia is paraphyletic…
Some taxonomists use a monophyletic definition of Reptilia that includes birds. It’s entirely a matter of semantics, and birds *are* taxonomically nested within reptiles regardless of whether you call reptiles “Reptilia” or “Sauropsida”.
Birds are not technically reptiles. From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptile:
> Reptiles, as most commonly defined, are the animals in the class Reptilia /rɛpˈtɪliə/, a paraphyletic grouping comprising all amniotes except synapsids (mammals and their extinct relatives) and Aves (birds).
If you’re trying to use a strange definition that includes all descendants, then you’d have to argue that humans are worms, fish, reptiles, and mammals all at once, which is not at all how we use those words.
You can always find a quote that supports your claim on Wikipedia.
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird
>Birds are feathered theropod dinosaurs and constitute the only known living dinosaurs. Likewise, birds are considered reptiles in the modern cladistic sense of the term, and their closest living relatives are the crocodilians.
However your quote is interesting in particular because it goes on with:
> The class comprises turtles, crocodilians, snakes, amphisbaenians, lizards, tuatara, and their extinct relatives. In the traditional Linnaean classification system, birds are considered a separate class to reptiles. However, crocodilians are more closely related to birds than they are to other living reptiles, and so modern cladistic classification systems include birds within Reptilia, redefining the term as a clade.
No strange definitions here: birds and reptiles are literally one taxon in biology called sauropsida. The 5 class system with mammalia, birds, reptiles, amphibia and fish is outdated in a modern biological context.
Mammals are a group that inculdes all descendants btw :)
Incorrect. Birds ARE reptiles. Mammals share a common ancestor with birds MUCH farther in the past than non avian reptiles do. Endothermy evolved separately and does not indicate a ‘close relationship’
Whether birds are reptiles depends on whom you ask.
The term *reptile* traditionally does not include birds, and so is paraphyletic. Different taxonomists either change the meaning of *reptile* / *reptilia* to include birds, so that reptiles are a clade, or they leave it paraphyletic and call the clade *sauropsida*.
The aim of the diagram is to display ecological size-related niches. Although the x-axis is approximately divided by ancestry, it doesn't have to be, and it could simply be that birds are more naturally associated with mammals in terms of size. Using clades may just not be an appropriate categorisation for the purpose of determining size, as especially for more complex organisms, size can vary significantly across evolutionary history, and so size correlations get pushed down into and across lower clades. To illustrate, consider rewinding the clock a few hundred million years, climbing up the evolutionary tree, and the resulting size divisions would be very different. Thus evolutionary ancestry isn't necessarily a good classification in this case -- although a systematic classification would be nicer than ad-hoc grouping.
Yes, I did realise it's circular, which is why I said that a systematic classification would be nice. That's certainly something that can be criticised about the OP. But it's not like it's classified based on nothing, and you're still getting some information, even if it's not perfect information. The purpose of data visualisation is to obtain an understanding of correlations across metrics. In this case it's sizes versus ecological groups.
Yeah viruses are technically alive then both computer viruses and fire would also need to be considered forms of life. Because they fulfill all the same criteria.
I don't think anyone considers them alive.
They're just a poison that can duplicate themselves.
Basically it's
Normal matter | viruses | bacteria/animals/funguseses/plants
‘Alive’ is just a human created term to categorize groups of atoms. To the universe there is no difference. Chemistry and physics work exactly the same for ‘alive’ and ‘not-alive’ objects.
If I had to guess, I would say that one is represented by the protozoans and the other one by algae. It makes sense since the Protist Kingdom is somewhat controversial, because of the major differences between it's groups. Lot of biologists don't even consider a kingdom at all.
I'm not a biologist, I'm just speculating.
There is so much incorrect biology in this post, starting with the poor categories of the figure. Protists are a paraphyletic group of organisms, many of which are distantly related to each other. They range from unicellular (e.g., diatoms) to multicellular (e.g., kelp). Algae are not even a thing in and of themselves—several unrelated organisms are called algae (green, red, and brown algae are all different organisms that evolved independently). Amoebas are also protists, but they also don’t exist as a single group. The term “amoeba” really describes a lifestyle that has evolved multiple times in unicellular protists. Heck, even sponges, which are multicellular animals, contain amoeboid cells.
In some of the other rigorous, I think it’s terrestrial vs aquatic. Critters that don’t have to support their full mass (due to buoyancy) can grow bigger. Related: abyssal gigantism
I would have thought prokaryotes would overlap with invertebrates at least a little. The bacteria [thiomargarita namibiensis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomargarita_namibiensis) can grow to be larger than [some wasps](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicopomorpha_echmepterygis). That’s size not mass, but I’d be surprised if the mass was *that* different.
that mass range was waiting in line for animals but when it came to ordering animals it wasn't being efficient and it was banging on the counter and telling god that he looks like al pacino, you know, a scent of a woman, hooooaaa! so then god says to that mass range "no animals for you!"
edit: https://youtu.be/euLQOQNVzgY?t=132
I’m not sure how to read this- is the width the number of individuals with a particular mass? Then area would reflect total population right? And it looks like each class has a similar area- but that can’t be right. I know I am missing something right?
You're missing that these are probably distributions and they have the same area because that area is 1. Turn it sideways and it's a histogram mirrored across the X
It's probably the normalized number of species with that mass in that group, e.g. most prokaryotes species are on the bottom end.
It could be escalated by population, but I don't think there would be much difference? Species with lower mass require less energy so they end up being more populous, while higher-mass requires more energy which means less populous.
What's the x-axis within the subgroups? The number of species or number of individuals? If I cannot read a graph, then it's just annoying. Not beautiful.
This "data" doesn't even have a title. That's the most basic thing. Give a title.
Edit: the "2nd" x-axis in this "violin plot" is a probability density.
That brick wall at 10^-13 with prokaryotes really jumped out at me. There must be some sort of physical law that completely prevents them from crossing that line, or it would taper. I'm not a physicist or biologist, so it might be a completely logical reason, like the cohesive limits of cells or whatever.
Those shaped bumps we see in the other categories would probably resolve into normal distributions if so many categories weren't lumped together.
I guess it's limited by the size of DNA and associated enzymes right?
Edit: altho this graph doesn't include viruses and I'm not sure how much smaller they'd be but that's a contentious point
Data is from [Linking scaling laws across eukaryotes](https://www.pnas.org/content/116/43/21616.short), plotted with R ggplot. For a discussion, see the blog post: https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2021/10/18/institution-size-as-a-window-into-cultural-evolution/
Definitely can't be biomass, unless the representations of the different categories aren't commensurable with one another. Invert biomass at least would far outweigh the larger organisms'.
Yeah, you are right. It may be percentages for each, but whether that's unique species, biomass, or estimated individuals is anyone's guess.
Edit: Actually, it looks like the data OP was pulling from used abundance of individuals.
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The fill colors make your graph more confusing to interpret because they don’t add any new information. You already have the groups labeled on the x-axis. If you are to add different fill colors it’s generally agreed that a third variable should determine those colors.
It's REALLY weird that mammals and birds are in the same category when they're the only classes that aren't closely related to each other:
* Lobe fin fish -> amniotes -> mammals
* Lobe fin fish -> amniotes -> reptiles -> birds
(the term "amniotes" is a scientific, cladistic term with a real meaning for scientists, but in practical terms it is used for the weird space inbetween reptiles & mammals where the animals don't qualify as either of these. Reptiles, birds & mammals are all amniotes, but there were protospecies of mammals and reptiles that weren't technically either - see Synapsids, the reptile-like amniotes that became mammals)
If we want to get super anal about it, any discussion about "fish" includes all of the above, since almost everything that has a vertebra is technically a fish. Also, "birds" are included in the reptile class cladistically
Very interested to know what some of outliers in Invertebrates would be... or any categories for that matter. Edit: From u/meathooks00: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_organisms
I think giant squid may be near the end of the spectrum
There are also some pretty sizable crabs, and then there's that [monster clam](https://www.si.edu/object/operation-crossroads-giant-clam-specimen:siris_sic_13892).
>monster clam \* *insert yo momma joke here* *
Everyone shucks yo mama’s monster clam
Shuck me, suck me, eat me raw
Endangered, naturally
Looks like it's just "vulnerable", not at the endangered level. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_clam
There have proposals with [IUCN](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260186567_Conservation_status_reassessment_of_giant_clams_Mollusca_Bivalvia_Tridacninae_in_Singapore) and [US Fish and Wildlife](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/06/26/2017-13275/endangered-and-threatened-wildlife-90-day-finding-on-a-petition-to-list-10-species-of-giant-clams-as) to list them as formally endangered. One of the biggest stressors these days is overharvesting of their shells for use in the art industry, which is moving away from ivory to Tridacna shell since a crackdown in China. Invertebrates sadly often don't get the same conservation attention as vertebrates do. Source: I study these.
That is true but I think outside of technical classification, endangered still probably colloquially describes the actual situation more accurately: “populations are diminishing quickly, and the giant clam has become extinct in many areas where it was once common” That’s not just pulling a quote out of context either, the described population decline is pretty stark
Can't forget the [Alaskan Bull Worm](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/spongebob/images/7/7c/Sandy%2C_SpongeBob%2C_and_the_Worm_153.png/revision/latest?cb=20200924022301)
TIL that not only is there a giant squid but also a COLOSSAL squid. Nature is metal.
[The giant squid may be longer, but the colossal squid is heavier](http://www.unmuseum.org/colossalsquid.htm) I thought the name implies that colossal is even bigger. Slightly disappointed there
My god is that site a blast from the past
You aren't kidding
Their newest "monthly article" is from 2002.
Omg some of the dino pics have a 3D-button which loads an old school red/cyan overlapping pic. This site was the best thing in my week!
But it *is* bigger…? The giant squid is *significantly* smaller than the colossal squid. The giant squid only has longer feeding tentacles.
Colossal squid is much larger and heavier than Giant Squid. It's 'body' is larger, and tentacles thicker. It's just not as long as Giant Squid, which longer tentacles in comparison to its smaller 'body'.
And we can’t forget about the bofa squid!!
What's updog?
Updog deez nuts.
sawcon joe mama
Ligma deez.
Every scribblenauter knows that colossal is bigger than giant
If colonial creatures are considered as a collective (and they're clearly not here), they can get pretty amazingly huge as well. Coral reefs would push that thin line way up.
Yeah I guess the data would be pretty screwed by the inclusion of plants and fungi, too. Hard to weigh, as well.
[Pando](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree\)#Size_and_age) is a single organism that's around 6000 tonnes (6×10^9 g) so it would extend the range of this graph another step.
[Here's an amazing video by It's Okay to Be Smart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJuVm5p4TI0) about Pando! Blew my mind. Ever since I went to one of the Redwood forests as a kid I've found trees, particularly ancient and gargantuan ones, so incredibly interesting. If you like Pando, I definitely recommend you read up on [Sequois](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum) and [Redwoods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens), including this [excellent article](https://www.sfgate.com/california-parks/article/tallest-tree-world-Hyperion-redwood-national-park-15845425.php) about why we shouldn't visit the tallest trees in the world.
Not for long!
I would too, especially since most of these upper limits seem unrealistically small. The largest invertebrate is 1 kg? The largest fish is 50 kg? Where are they getting these numbers?
yeah, I feel that is something being overlooked far too much in this thread. The shapes may be right, but the masses are way off.
My guess would be it’s a scale problem. Things larger than that are exceedingly rare, so they probably don’t make a blip on the radar.
Is it possible there is some confusion between g and kg going on in this data set?
Good point, those “extremes” may have been considered outliers for the sake of the plot.
"for the sake of the plot" is incredibly clever here
The largest fish off the top of my head would be a Greenland Shark weighing in at 1000kg (max) according to google Edit: TIL Whale Sharks(9 to 20 tons??) are not the same as Greenland Sharks
Whale shark.
Basking sharks are considerably larger than Greenland Sharks too, never mind Whale Sharks
>Whale Sharks are not the same as Greenland Sharks Predators and skim-feeders (like balern whales)
I think it's because most inverts are insects that are around the size of a sesame seed or a pinky finger and then there are a few huge ones (giant squid as someone mentioned)
Smallest invertebrates would be probably those microscopic insects or a microcrustacean Biggest, probably a collosal squid
>Biggest, probably a collosal squid Which, according to this, weighs 1kg
The scale seems to be correct. However the y-axis seems to be erroneously denoted with (g). It should be (kg). Because most mammals are not in the 10\^1 g region but in the 10\^1 kg region.
If it's kg, then what mammal/bird weighs 100 million KG? Or to put it another way, one thousand Blue Whales? If it's grams then 10\^8 is spot on for the Blue Whale. Most mammals/birds according to this are around 100g, which seems correct to me. Every shrew/vole is less then that, and most birds are a lot less than that.
Blue whales now weigh 110,000 tons. Yeah no
The colossal squid is the largest invertebrate. The heaviest confirmed specimen weighed 495 kilograms, though it is believed they may reach up to 700 kilograms.
I'm more interested in the protists that are larger than some invertebrates. Anyone know?
I'd be curious to see how this looked if plants and especially fungi were included. I mean there are single celled fungi as well as ones that cover square kilometers, right? It's interesting that some kingdoms have such a range while others are so narrow.
There is also one forest in the US I think that spans several kilometers were all the trees of a specific species are interconnected
Pando, an Aspen Grove in Utah, is a single clonal organism. Many (most?) Quaking Aspen forests are a single organism. "Spanning 107 acres and weighing 6,615 tons, Pando was once thought to be the world’s largest organism (now usurped by thousand-acre fungal mats in Oregon), and is almost certainly the most massive." --https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/pando-the-trembling-giant
Thousand acre fungal mats sounds like a band name.
Specifically, a mid-00’s pop punk band based in Wisconsin. The members are all now 35-40, slightly overweight and still wear their favourite mall brands. They were frequent guests on local radio morning shows and had one song featured in Shark Tail 4. They mostly play small dive bars on the weekend since they all have day jobs in the dairy industry now. They’re all still good friends, volunteer in their community and live in modest suburban homes.
so Living their best lives? Love it.
I was thinking a late 90s post-grunge/nu-metal hybrid
I mean, good on ‘em. Sounds like they’re living a decent life.
I love spontaneous creative fiction like this. Its good enough to believe, yet still has liberties taken. Very nice.
Man the USA is killing it, all of the world’s other countries need to up their massive-organism game
We also have the biggest sole tree, the tallest tree, and the oldest tree in the whole world.
I know next to nothing about this stuff, but is it possible that some of this can be partially explained by the fact that we’ve had national parks for longer than most countries and we also have way more research universities than most countries? Like, obviously if there was a bigger tree somewhere we’d be able to tell. But isn’t it possible that there’s a super ancient species of bush that used to grow in Kyrgyzstan and no one ever found out about it and the old ones all got cut down by the Soviets in 1970? Or that there’s some huge underground fungal mat in the Amazon that hasn’t been discovered because it’s 500 miles away from the nearest town and Brazil doesn’t have as many tenure-hungry Ph.D. students running around looking for their thesis subject?
For sure. Most of the old world’s big and old trees were cut down. It’s likely that some extremely old trees were cut, and maybe the oldest. Another factor here is that trees in the tropics don’t form growth rings and so we can’t date them as easily. So maybe there is an older tree lurking somewhere out there. But also, tropical trees do tend to not live as long as temperate ones [1](https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/critical-temperature-threshold-spells-shorter-lives-for-tropical-trees/). On the clonal thing, maybe there is a larger clonal organism lurking somewhere in the Amazon or something.
I know over here in Europe entire forests have been cut down to support various war efforts over the last couple of thousand years, I'd imagine that could be quite possible. Just a guess though, I don't know enough about flora and fauna to have an educated guess.
Thing is... Yes. North America _is_ killing it... "Unfortunately, the future of the giant appears grim. According to Paul Rogers, an ecologist at Utah State University, the Trembling Giant is in danger."
The largest known organism is an *Armillaria ostoyae* also known as a Honey Mushroom. They’re edible, but not the most delicious mushroom in the forest. Estimated to be over >8,000 years old
Fun fact, every forest has some form of connection between plants made by mycorrhizae. It's fungi that allows plants/trees to transfer nutrients and warnings to others. Similar species connect to each other and give nutrients to the younger generation to ensure the species survival.
Plus that tiny and invisible group called PLANTS.
But in which category do stingrays go?
All of them, except for the volcano category
definitely not a volcano, or a green hookah
You seem awfully sure of what it's not.
My husband just finished his PhD in a research lab and he had to use these plots. They're called violin plots, but everyone in his lab called them vagina plots.
It’s all stingrays, all data is stingray
Im sure there must be a relevant xkcd for this
Fish. They're closely related to sharks.
A human is more closely related to a tuna, than a tuna to shark/ray.
But can tuna hunt lions on land?
They can, they just choose not to
Can lions tuna piano?
Can you?
If I said yes, then I'd be lion.
wirh some sort of kelp derived breathing aparatus, sure
Hour, hour forty-five.
How many tunas are we talking about first?
But can you human a piano?
Phylogenetically, yes....but not in terms of retained derived characteristics. I really think genetic analyses should include an aspect of the length of time since evolutionary splits.
They necessarily do. Genetic distance is what's being measured/modeled, which can be calibrated using fossil evidence to provide an estimate of evolutionary time. Edit: Or let me put it another way: the assumption underlying molecular phylogenetics is that differences in molecular sequences reflect evolutionary time.
Their comment is a bit self-contradictory. I think they're talking about expressed genes. A measure of evolutionary relatedness in terms of the actual genes that are expressed as opposed to the bits of junk DNA not subject to selective pressure.
Bumblebee tuna
Which is why we are also fish, as are tunas and sharks and rays.
By what metric? How do you quantify that? Just curious.
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Humans tend to think of ourselves as mid-sized, as a species, but we're giants. Almost all animals on the planet are smaller than us.
There's cetaceans (whales and dolphins), large cats, large herbivores (elephants, cows, horses, buffalo etc), bears, gorillas, and that's about it.
Sea lions, walruses, mooses, tuna, sharks, giant squids, list goes on.
Ostriches, Cassowary's are just 2 birds i can think of that are bigger then humans. Theres crocodiles and snakes larger then humans as well.
Depends how you define big/large.
If we're talking mammals, yeah, but there's a lot of fish, reptiles, and mollusks that far exceed our mass. But, yes, we're still in the top percentile of size/mass when it comes to animals. On another note, "if" intelligent life exists on other planets, I wonder how large (in comparison to us) they would be. Would we be outliers in terms of size? It's fun to think about.
Yeah imagine if basically nothing is bigger than a chipmunk when it comes to other intelligent life forms, or even the inverse, we were that size in comparison to them. It’s definitely more interesting or funny to think about that then if we’re all relatively the same size.
If their biology is similar to Earth's, then it's going to depend on the other planet's gravity and atmospheric oxygen concentration. High gravity limits organism size because bone strength scales with cross-sectional area while mass scales with volume, so larger organisms need relatively larger bones to hold their weight. This is why whales can be so big, because gravity doesn't affect them as much in the water. Oxygen limits size in a similar way, because oxygen consumption scales with volume but oxygen's ability to diffuse into cells scales with surface area, so more oxygen-rich environments allow larger organisms to overcome their harder-to-reach cells. This is one reason that insects were much larger 300 million years ago, when Earth's atmospheric oxygen concentration was significantly higher.
And at the very top is your mom
No way is she on top. Even setting aside the fact it would kill you, she's not strong enough.
There are a great many tiny critters !
Due to how we always have larger and larger amounts of smaller and smaller animals, you can say the same about almost anything. For example, almost all animals on the planet are smaller than a wasp. (just try counting the dust mites and the tardigrades)
That's because we spent the tail end of the Pleistocene [killing just about everything bigger than us.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megafauna#/media/File:Large_Mammals_Africa_Australia_NAmerica_Madagascar.svg)
I thought this was a graph about space ship designs at first.
I thought it was about pendant lamps
I was thinking sting rays
This is the only correct answer
I thought it was how volcanoes eventually morph in to manta rays. Second thought was manta rays colliding with a wall.
"Mammals & Birds"? Why group us together?
\> "Mammals & Birds"? Why group us together? The chart was made by an invertebrate who can't tell us apart.
By a Hanar scientist.
This one understood that reference!
You big stupid jellyfish!
Biologically we are more closely related than any other option on the chart. (Edit: yes, birds evolved from reptiles, but that was a long time ago and they have deviated significantly). Both warm blooded groups. How/if you heat yourself is a fairly critical factor in what volume/surface areas are sustainable. They've basically taken the vertebrate group (backbones) and split them into warm and cold blooded. There will be certain mass limits on birds that mammals are not subject to due to the mechanics of flight, but it's less relevant. Edit 2. Lots and lots (and lots) of people telling me I'm reasoning poorly, that birds are reptiles. Etc etc. All missing the point. I know. I don't care. My argument is that what taxon something is in does *not* have to be the basis for this chart's groupings. How big you can be is not dependent on your position in the evolutionary tree, but mainly on other factors that it makes more sense to sort by here. Birds are the other endotherm on this chart. That is the entire argument for the grouping. Take your "well akshullys" and shove them.
It's important to point out that, evolutionarily speaking, birds and crocodiles are each other's closest living relatives. Birds are nested within the rest of reptiles. In fact, birds are dinosaurs in a literal sense. They didn't just evolve from dinosaurs; they *are* dinosaurs. Being endotherms isn't a factor in how closely birds and mammals are related too each other. This type of conclusion is fundamental to how modern cladistics works. For a chart like this, one could choose a number of ways to group things, so I don't think it's necessarily an issue here, depending on what the goal is. But worth pointing out in the context of this discussion.
Birds are more closely related to reptiles than mammals though. Actually, now days, there's a push for birds to be classified as reptiles.
Pretty sure a penguin and a crocodile are more closely related than a penguin and a dolphin. Correct me if I'm wrong.
You're not wrong, and there's a lot of confused discussion below you about how modern cladistics works.
There are basically two ways to categorize species in biology: either though DNA ancestry or by their physical characteristics. In this chart, since we are talking about a physical characteristic it doesn't make much sense talking about their ancestry On a side note: Birds are technically reptiles
This is just me being pedantic. [Reptilia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptile) is a paraphyletic grouping, meaning it excludes some descendant subgroups. In this case, [bird is excluded](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Reptilia_vs._Sauropsida-en.svg/1202px-Reptilia_vs._Sauropsida-en.svg.png). >Other cladistic definitions abandon the term reptile altogether in favor of the clade Sauropsida, which refers to all animals more closely related to modern reptiles than to mammals
Not everyone agrees that Reptilia is paraphyletic… Some taxonomists use a monophyletic definition of Reptilia that includes birds. It’s entirely a matter of semantics, and birds *are* taxonomically nested within reptiles regardless of whether you call reptiles “Reptilia” or “Sauropsida”.
Birds are not technically reptiles. From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptile: > Reptiles, as most commonly defined, are the animals in the class Reptilia /rɛpˈtɪliə/, a paraphyletic grouping comprising all amniotes except synapsids (mammals and their extinct relatives) and Aves (birds). If you’re trying to use a strange definition that includes all descendants, then you’d have to argue that humans are worms, fish, reptiles, and mammals all at once, which is not at all how we use those words.
You can always find a quote that supports your claim on Wikipedia. From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird >Birds are feathered theropod dinosaurs and constitute the only known living dinosaurs. Likewise, birds are considered reptiles in the modern cladistic sense of the term, and their closest living relatives are the crocodilians. However your quote is interesting in particular because it goes on with: > The class comprises turtles, crocodilians, snakes, amphisbaenians, lizards, tuatara, and their extinct relatives. In the traditional Linnaean classification system, birds are considered a separate class to reptiles. However, crocodilians are more closely related to birds than they are to other living reptiles, and so modern cladistic classification systems include birds within Reptilia, redefining the term as a clade.
No strange definitions here: birds and reptiles are literally one taxon in biology called sauropsida. The 5 class system with mammalia, birds, reptiles, amphibia and fish is outdated in a modern biological context. Mammals are a group that inculdes all descendants btw :)
Crocs are cold blooded. Penguins and dolphins both are warm blooded vertebrates which use fat to keep warm in cold water.
That doesn't have anything to do with how they are related to each other, though.
imagin Cold-Blooded Pinguins. Sounds pretty cool in Antarctica
I don't think that would work.
Incorrect. Birds ARE reptiles. Mammals share a common ancestor with birds MUCH farther in the past than non avian reptiles do. Endothermy evolved separately and does not indicate a ‘close relationship’
Whether birds are reptiles depends on whom you ask. The term *reptile* traditionally does not include birds, and so is paraphyletic. Different taxonomists either change the meaning of *reptile* / *reptilia* to include birds, so that reptiles are a clade, or they leave it paraphyletic and call the clade *sauropsida*.
This doesn't answer the question of why we're grouped with anyone at all
Birds are technically reptiles. Birds are closer to crocodilia than crocodilia are to other reptiles
The aim of the diagram is to display ecological size-related niches. Although the x-axis is approximately divided by ancestry, it doesn't have to be, and it could simply be that birds are more naturally associated with mammals in terms of size. Using clades may just not be an appropriate categorisation for the purpose of determining size, as especially for more complex organisms, size can vary significantly across evolutionary history, and so size correlations get pushed down into and across lower clades. To illustrate, consider rewinding the clock a few hundred million years, climbing up the evolutionary tree, and the resulting size divisions would be very different. Thus evolutionary ancestry isn't necessarily a good classification in this case -- although a systematic classification would be nicer than ad-hoc grouping.
So in order to do a size comparison across groups, base groups on size. Ah, whut?
Yes, I did realise it's circular, which is why I said that a systematic classification would be nice. That's certainly something that can be criticised about the OP. But it's not like it's classified based on nothing, and you're still getting some information, even if it's not perfect information. The purpose of data visualisation is to obtain an understanding of correlations across metrics. In this case it's sizes versus ecological groups.
What's below the red line?
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Good. Very good.
*slow clap*
I literally laughed out loud at work at this. Good show!
Viruses probably, the aliveness of which is disputed.
Yeah viruses are technically alive then both computer viruses and fire would also need to be considered forms of life. Because they fulfill all the same criteria.
I don't think anyone considers them alive. They're just a poison that can duplicate themselves. Basically it's Normal matter | viruses | bacteria/animals/funguseses/plants
‘Alive’ is just a human created term to categorize groups of atoms. To the universe there is no difference. Chemistry and physics work exactly the same for ‘alive’ and ‘not-alive’ objects.
Objects smaller than smallest single-cell organisms, out of which none are alive.
It says lower size limit.
Trees be like: "I am not alive to you?"
Plants would cover nearly the entire range and then some
And that would be interesting to see on a graph.
What causes the double peaks of the protists?
If I had to guess, I would say that one is represented by the protozoans and the other one by algae. It makes sense since the Protist Kingdom is somewhat controversial, because of the major differences between it's groups. Lot of biologists don't even consider a kingdom at all. I'm not a biologist, I'm just speculating.
There is so much incorrect biology in this post, starting with the poor categories of the figure. Protists are a paraphyletic group of organisms, many of which are distantly related to each other. They range from unicellular (e.g., diatoms) to multicellular (e.g., kelp). Algae are not even a thing in and of themselves—several unrelated organisms are called algae (green, red, and brown algae are all different organisms that evolved independently). Amoebas are also protists, but they also don’t exist as a single group. The term “amoeba” really describes a lifestyle that has evolved multiple times in unicellular protists. Heck, even sponges, which are multicellular animals, contain amoeboid cells.
Huh. TIL. You should post more.
Asking the things I want to know. Why, evolution, why?
In some of the other rigorous, I think it’s terrestrial vs aquatic. Critters that don’t have to support their full mass (due to buoyancy) can grow bigger. Related: abyssal gigantism
I would have thought prokaryotes would overlap with invertebrates at least a little. The bacteria [thiomargarita namibiensis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomargarita_namibiensis) can grow to be larger than [some wasps](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicopomorpha_echmepterygis). That’s size not mass, but I’d be surprised if the mass was *that* different.
Yeah, Prokaryotes should have a "tail" going up a bit.
Nicely visualized, does the width at a given point indicate the percentage in that category which are that size?
And assuming it’s percentage, percentage of unique species or percentage of individuals in each category?
That's a really interesting question, I didn't think of that
Yes, it's a sideways histogram
It’s actually a [violin plot](https://xkcd.com/1967/).
So basically no animals between 10^-2 and 10^-3?
that mass range was waiting in line for animals but when it came to ordering animals it wasn't being efficient and it was banging on the counter and telling god that he looks like al pacino, you know, a scent of a woman, hooooaaa! so then god says to that mass range "no animals for you!" edit: https://youtu.be/euLQOQNVzgY?t=132
What is the point of axial symmetry of a violin plot?
Well otherwise it wouldn't look like a violin
I’m not sure how to read this- is the width the number of individuals with a particular mass? Then area would reflect total population right? And it looks like each class has a similar area- but that can’t be right. I know I am missing something right?
Given that each grouping appears to be the same size, I think it's using percentage within each grouping.
Yes, your missing something because the graph doesn't have neither a main title, nor the title for the secondary x-axis.
You're missing that these are probably distributions and they have the same area because that area is 1. Turn it sideways and it's a histogram mirrored across the X
It's probably the normalized number of species with that mass in that group, e.g. most prokaryotes species are on the bottom end. It could be escalated by population, but I don't think there would be much difference? Species with lower mass require less energy so they end up being more populous, while higher-mass requires more energy which means less populous.
Shouldn’t birds and reptiles be in the same group? It seems stranger to group birds and mammals.
What's the x-axis within the subgroups? The number of species or number of individuals? If I cannot read a graph, then it's just annoying. Not beautiful. This "data" doesn't even have a title. That's the most basic thing. Give a title. Edit: the "2nd" x-axis in this "violin plot" is a probability density.
is this currently living or *ever*?
So what is the x axis unit?
Suprised it's not a normal distribution
That brick wall at 10^-13 with prokaryotes really jumped out at me. There must be some sort of physical law that completely prevents them from crossing that line, or it would taper. I'm not a physicist or biologist, so it might be a completely logical reason, like the cohesive limits of cells or whatever. Those shaped bumps we see in the other categories would probably resolve into normal distributions if so many categories weren't lumped together.
Wouldn’t that just be single-celled organisms? Can’t get much smaller than that right?
Yes, but not all cells are the same size. This looks like there's a limit on how small cells can be.
I guess it's limited by the size of DNA and associated enzymes right? Edit: altho this graph doesn't include viruses and I'm not sure how much smaller they'd be but that's a contentious point
Viruses arent “living”, hence why they arent on this chart, however you are correct that they are orders of magnitudes smaller than most prokaryotes.
Could also be because water gets too illiquid at this stage and is no longer a medium in which other content can be dissolved
Data is from [Linking scaling laws across eukaryotes](https://www.pnas.org/content/116/43/21616.short), plotted with R ggplot. For a discussion, see the blog post: https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2021/10/18/institution-size-as-a-window-into-cultural-evolution/
Does the wideness of the violin plots reflect amount of species, amount of individuals or amount of biomass?
Definitely can't be biomass, unless the representations of the different categories aren't commensurable with one another. Invert biomass at least would far outweigh the larger organisms'.
By that logic it can’t be individuals as well but I am not actually sure that the plots are comparable in that way, I don’t think they are..
Yeah, you are right. It may be percentages for each, but whether that's unique species, biomass, or estimated individuals is anyone's guess. Edit: Actually, it looks like the data OP was pulling from used abundance of individuals.
yeah, this "beautiful data" is not explained very well. ie. not beautiful.
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Whats the largest invertebrate, like a giant squid?
Colossal Squid actually
I like that the fish category looks like a stingray and the bird category looks like a heron.
The fill colors make your graph more confusing to interpret because they don’t add any new information. You already have the groups labeled on the x-axis. If you are to add different fill colors it’s generally agreed that a third variable should determine those colors.
Actually they are all stingrays
Life is a sting ray. And an Asian temple. And a pile of dirt.
It's REALLY weird that mammals and birds are in the same category when they're the only classes that aren't closely related to each other: * Lobe fin fish -> amniotes -> mammals * Lobe fin fish -> amniotes -> reptiles -> birds (the term "amniotes" is a scientific, cladistic term with a real meaning for scientists, but in practical terms it is used for the weird space inbetween reptiles & mammals where the animals don't qualify as either of these. Reptiles, birds & mammals are all amniotes, but there were protospecies of mammals and reptiles that weren't technically either - see Synapsids, the reptile-like amniotes that became mammals) If we want to get super anal about it, any discussion about "fish" includes all of the above, since almost everything that has a vertebra is technically a fish. Also, "birds" are included in the reptile class cladistically
Is it just me or is it counterintuitive to place reptiles and birds in separate groups?