The Champion Tree Project (www.championtreeproject.org) started with producing genetic duplicates of the largest specimens of 826 American tree species and branched into historic botany three years ago.
From fat, hairy spiders in the bath, to the creepy-crawlies such as huge beetles, enormous ants and gargantuan crabs in hotter climes, the world's larger arthropods are enough to make grown men shudder.Yet the largest specimens of today are tiddlers compared with what scientists have unearthed in Germany.
In the Aguja Formation of Texas, where some of the largest specimens of Deinosuchus have been found, these massive predators probably inhabited brackish-water bays.
It should be noted, however, that Heimo Mikkola reported the largest specimens of eagle-owl as having the same upper body mass, 4.6 kg, as the largest Blakiston's fish owl and attained a length of around 3 cm longer.
Overall, the dinosaur assemblages represented in the Hell Creek Formation consist primarily of subadult or small adult size individuals (based on comparisons with the largest specimens of known taxa).
But he noted that "there remain many uncertainties" about the 1470 fossil "and whether it might still be just a large specimen of Homo habilis".
Shortly after this humongous fungus was discovered lurking beneath the forest on the foothills of Mount Adams in southwestern Washington state, another, larger specimen of Armillaria solidipes (formerly Armillaria ostoyae) or "honey mushroom" fungus was found hidden beneath the Malheur National Forest in northeastern Oregon state.
In 2003, a large specimen of A. solidipes (synonymous with A. ostoyae) was recorded in the Blue Mountains, Oregon, covering an area of 965 ha.
A large specimen of exactly 1.8 m total length, caught in 1973, was found to have weighed 11.3 kg with an empty stomach.
While this remains possible, the unfused sacral vertebrae and short face indicate that this specimen represents a juvenile animal, while a second, larger specimen of Abrictosaurus clearly possesses tusks.
