Wilder's damn good questions, Vol. 3: What is the biggest thing on Earth?

Tonight's question was just that: "What is the biggest thing on Earth?"

I didn't know the answer to this, so I had to look it up. It's the earth's atmosphere.

"What's atmosphere?"

Luckily I had done my research and answered this with more than "the stuff we can't see that surrounds the earth."

This all turned into a discussion of science: fungi, bacteria, animals, plants, etc. We found out there's a fungus that is actually the largest living thing on earth. It's referred to as Armillaria ostoyae, the honey mushroom, or — my personal favorite — humongous fungus (which is also what I'll name my band should I ever form one).

We also talked about the biggest dinosaurs: Argentinosaurus is thought to be the largest (the seismosaurus and ultrasaurus are common guesses, as well).

It's pretty cool what you learn when you have a kid that asks questions like this all the time. There's a worm called the bootlace worm that washed up on the shores of Scotland in 1864. 180 feet long. Yuck.

Next we'll be breaking out the microscope and ordering bacteria slides, because he's DYING to see stuff like this.

He watches the Science Channel a lot now.

Lord do I love my little geek. So handsome, so smart and so very sweet.