The largest member of the family Camelidae is the dromedary or one-humped camel (Camelus dromedarius), with a head and body length of 2.3-3.5 m (7 ft 6 in–11 ft 5 in), a tail length of 55 cm (21 in),a shoulder height of 1.8-2.1 m (6 ft–6 ft 10 in) (maximum 2.4 m 7 ft 10 in) and a weight of 450–690 kg (992–1,521 lb). It is native to the Middle East, but survives today as a feral animal only in Australia and Spain, and as Continue reading →

The longest species of beetle in terms of body size alone is the titan beetle Titanus giganteus of South America, with a body length of 15 cm (6 in). In terms of total length, the hercules beetle Dynastes hercules (the largest of the ‘rhinoceros’ beetles, also of South America) measure 17 cm (7 in) long, due to a long pair of horns – one extending from the head, the other from the thorax. However, the largest in terms of weight, and indeed the heaviest of Continue reading →

The world’s largest known spider is a male goliath bird-eating spider (Theraphosa blondi) collected by members of the Pablo San Martin Expedition at Rio Cavro, Venezuela in April 1965. It had a record leg-span of 28 cm (11 in) – sufficient to cover a dinner plate. This species is found in the coastal rainforests of Surinam, Guyana and French Guiana, but isolated specimens have also been reported from Venezuela and Brazil. A two year old spider of the same species, bred by Robert Bustard and Continue reading →

The largest zoological family of spiders is Salticidae, which contains the jumping spiders. Over 4400 species are currently known to science, and most live in the tropics. Uncharacteristically for spiders, jumping spiders hardly ever spin webs, catching their prey not by entrapment but by actively leaping at them.

Claria Corporation, formerly known as Gator Corporation, operated from 1998 to 2008, when it was closed down completely. During that period it offered ‘free’ software to World Wide Web users which also installed Gator’s/Claria’s client software. This spyware monitored the web activity of up to 40 million users, and then used this data to send strategically chosen advertisements to their PCs.

Due to the physical difficulties in directly measuring the size of a distant star, the identity of the largest star is a matter for debate amongst astronomers. The current most likely candidate is VY Canis Majoris, a red supergiant some 5,000 light years away. Estimates of its size give it a diameter of between 2.5 and 3 billion km (1.55 and 1.86 billion miles), or 1,800 – 2,100 times that of the Sun. If placed at the centre of the Solar System, its outer surface Continue reading →

A team of astronomers led by Richard Gott III and Mario Juric (both USA) of Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, have discovered a huge wall of galaxies some 1.37 billion light years long. They used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which is mapping the locations of one million galaxies in the universe. Their discovery was announced in October 2003. Dubbed the ‘Sloan Great Wall’, this structure consists of an unusually dense concentration of galaxies within the filamentary large-scale structure of the universe.

The largest structure built by an animal is that of a beaver’s lodge and dam. Beavers (Castor canadensis) of North America use mud, wood, vegetation and stones to dam up water to form a pond and then build a lodge for winter refuge. The largest lodge ever recorded was 12.1 m (40 ft) across and 4.8 m (16 ft) high and the longest beaver dam ever recorded measured 1.5 km (0.9 miles) long. Lodges typically measure 3-4 m (9 ft 10 in -13 ft) across, 3 Continue reading →

The worlds largest submarines are the Russian 941 Akula (designated ‘Typhoon’ by NATO) class. The launch of the first at the secret covered shipyard at Severodvinsk in the White Sea was announced by NATO on 23 Sep 1980. The vessels are believed to have a dived displacement of 26,500 tonnes (58.422 million lb), to measure 171.5 m (562 ft 7 in) overall and to be armed with 20 multiple warhead SS-N-20 missiles with a range of 8300 km (4500 nautical miles). It is thought less Continue reading →

Located principally in southwestern Brazil but with small areas within neighbouring Bolivia and Paraguay too, Pantanal (which is Spanish for ‘marshland’) covers a surface area of 150,000 km² (57,915 miles²) (greater than the total surface area of England! During the rainy season (December-May), 80 per cent of Pantanal is flooded, and it contains the greatest diversity of water plants in the world. As Sudd in Sudan has sometimes been referred to as the world’s largest swamp. However, even in high flood waters its total area Continue reading →