Blue whales and redwood trees do not even begin to compare to the biggest organism in the world, measuring at over 2 miles across and hardly ever seen by any human.
This honey fungus is believed to be the largest living organism on Earth. The most recent article I could find published about this mycelium colony was on May 16th, 2017 by National Geographic.
National Geographic claims the fungus covers 2,385 acres of Oregon and is our largest and oldest organism to date. The age is estimated to be around 2,400 - 8,650 years old.
A Quick Lesson In The Mushroom Life Cycle
When you analyze the above graph you can notice one thing, which is that the main mushroom organism is the mycelium and not the mushroom itself. This is because mushrooms are only the fruiting body from which certain fungus reproduce or "spore".
The mushroom will release spore from it's cap like the below shows:
The Mushroom Species In The Blue Mountains - Armillaria
This mushroom genus is commonly referred to as the honey fungus. It is seen as a pest because it's colonies kill a few trees and woodland plants once fully established.
These yellow-brown mushrooms appear above ground but are only seen as massive once you realize the same organism also has an underground network of filaments called mycelium searching for nutrients and passing information throughout the organism.
The Internet Of Nature
An information highway speeding up interactions between large populations, allowing individuals to communicate for assistance. This is not the internet, it is a myceliim network.
I see the mycelium as the Earth's natural Internet, a consciousness with which we might be able to communicate. Through cross-species interfacing, we may one day exchange information with these sentient cellular networks.
Because these externalized neurological nets sense any impression upon them, from footsteps to falling tree branches, they could relay enormous amounts of data regarding the movements of all organisms through the landscape Paul Stamets
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Mycelium can be extremely small or form into a colony which lives for thousands of years...
Paul Stamets believe that mushrooms, or more specifically mycelium, can store information and possibly also even have consciousness.
If you are interested in mushrooms & want to learn more about Paul Stamets the following video is a great place to start:
What Do You Think About Having A Fungus As The Largest Organism Known To Humans?
I am excited by this because I do believe that myclieum is a very important part of our ecosystem that gives nutrients to many plants and possibly transfers information throughout our planet by way of neural networks.
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Source: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Sources for images (that are not mine) are provided by clicking on the image itself.
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@chron is fungus is responsible for the poisonous nature of amanita?
I don't know. Amanita is a poisonous fungus. You can research yourself.
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I have found more mushrooms, you must know more .. this mushroom growing from the dregs of palm waste.
That is awesome. Thanks for sharing that pic!
I think if we could communicate with fungus we might find that we didn't have a lot in common. The fungus is probably way more concerned with rodents taking a shit in a hole somewhere than we are. It would probably never shut up about it. Considering who you ask there is some seagrass that is the largest and oldest organism. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21433-patch-of-seagrass-is-worlds-oldest-living-organism/
That is true but wouldn't it be interesting to see how such a large organism communicated with itself? Could that not benefit humanity in some way?
I am sure it could benefit humanity in many ways, we could instruct it to grow into the shape of a house or an automobile.