After bacteria, fungi, protists and plants they beat… uh… nothing. There are only five kingdoms. But yes, animals are definitely in the top five largest groups of living things.

As far as being the largest living things, in fact plants take that crown. Aspen trees are often all connected by a single root system making a grove of them, in fact, a single organism. The largest one found covers just over 100 acres.
There is a fungus in North America somewhere (sorry, my memory’s not what it used be) that is around 1000 hectares or 9 square kilometres in size but it isn’t quite as voluminous or as heavy as the Aspen trees.
Animals come in third in this category.

Other random interesting facts:

Civets in South East Asia are used to produce the most expensive coffee in the world: Kopi Luwak. First, the civet eats the coffee berries, then they are fished out of its poo, washed and lightly roasted. People pay up to $600 per pound for this stuff.

Depending on the species, leeches have a mouth at each end with thousands of extremely sharp teeth. Some species of leech have a single mouth in the middle of their body. Their saliva contains an anesthetic which helps prevent you feeling their bite and an anticoagulant that keeps the blood flowing long after the leech has dropped off. Leeches also have six eyes at each end, right in the middle of their mouth. They have very powerful heat receptors which enable them to “see” the warmth coming off warm blooded animals from considerable distances and make their way towards it. Leeches can also survive 18 months without water. They are amazingly tough little creatures.

Zeb Hogan is on a quest currently to find the largest freshwater fish. He has caught stingrays weighing up to 485lb and there are stories of local fishermen catching rays that weighed 1100lb. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1036789/Quest-worlds-biggest-freshwater-fish-lands-6-foot-stingray–mere-tiddler.html Of course, it’s quite possible there are catfish this big too. The arapaima from the Amazon also grows to 450lb. An honourable mention from my native Australia is the Murray cod which gets up to the 250lb mark. I have personally seen one that was around 150lb.

Kiwi fruit are named after Kiwi the bird because they look so similar. Kiwis lay the largest egg for their body size – up to one quarter of the weight of the bird. Kiwis are also unique amongst birds in having a functioning pair of ovaries. The name Apteryx is the Greek genus name but no one calls them that.

Keas are well known for being very intelligent (for a bird). They can solve logic puzzles and have been known to work in teams to get food. Keas don’t wait for the sheep to die before eating, the keas are usually long gone by the time the sheep dies from blood loss.

Rhinos have very poor eyesight and very good hearing. At more than 10 metres away they can’t tell you from a tree unless you make a noise.

Beavers are the second largest rodent in the world after the Capybara. (There’s one to look up. Capybaras are way cool. They are the most chilled-out animal I have ever seen. They live in the swamps of South America and their main predator is the anaconda. Apparently, the Catholic Church declared that they should be classified as a fish in the 16th century so you can eat them during Lent.) Beavers can create very large dams, one was found that was 850m long. Beavers have also been classified as fish by the Catholic Church for much the same reason as the capybaras: the locals would have starved if they didn’t.

Here to help…

Dave.