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A goliath bird-eating tarantula jonrawlinson via Flickr
Go large
Super size me! The world's biggest spider and 8 other record-breakers
Bigger is better… and here are some of the best.
3.49pm, 14 Aug 2011
7.7k
5
LARGE THINGS HOLD a powerful fascination for humanity. We’re always trying to go one bigger and better – building taller buildings, more powerful machines, larger, er, portraits of ourselves.
Perhaps that makes us an inherently childish species – but if so, then Nature sometimes seems to be playing the same game. Here’s our selection of the world’s best biggest things, both natural and man-made. It’s difficult to be definitive, but to the best of our knowledge these are the title-holders. So hold your jaw in place, and prepare to feel small.
The world's biggest... tree
1/9
The General Sherman giant sequoia in California, the largest tree by volume on Earth, 275ft high. (mikebaird on Flickr)
The world's biggest... baby
2/9
This baby boy, left, weighed 19.2 pounds when born in Kisaran, Indonesia in 2009. He was 24.4 inches long - and born by Caesarean. (AP Photo/Andi Anshari)
The world's biggest... clock
3/9
The four-faced clock on Mecca's Abraj Al-Bait Towers in Saudi Arabia measures 43m x 43m on each face. (AP Photo/Essa Mohammad)
The world's biggest... hand-knitted carpet
4/9
There are 2,268,000 hand-tied knots in this $8.2 million carpet at the Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. It has room for 40,000 worshippers. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
The world's biggest... organism
5/9
The Armillaria solidipes fungus looks modest, but one single organism spreads over 3.4 square miles in an Oregon forest, sprouting thousands of mushrooms every autumn.
The world's biggest... vehicle
6/9
The 'Bagger 288' excavator is 96m high and 240m long, weighing 13,000 tonnes. It is used in 'brown coal' mining in Germany and travels at a top speed of 10m per minute. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
The world's biggest... spider
7/9
The Goliath Bird-Eating Tarantula has a leg span of up to a foot. (jonrawlinson on Flickr)
The world's biggest... portrait
8/9
A portrait of former Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk carved into the mountains at Erzincan. It measures 7,500 square metres. (Google Earth)
The world's biggest... portion of chips
9/9
The largest ever portion of chips - 448kg - was served in Southend-on-Sea, England, in June. Five staff took more than four hours just to cut the potatoes. (Chris Radburn/PA Wire)
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