Size of Life
Scroll to grow bigger — feel the size of life, from a virus to a whale, all measured against you.
Virus
A SARS-CoV-2 virus is about 100 nanometres across — roughly a ten-millionth of a metre. You could line up about 17 million of them along your own height.
1.7×10⁷× smaller than you
Bacterium
A single E. coli bacterium is about 2 micrometres long. Hundreds would fit across the width of a human hair.
8.5×10⁵× smaller than you
Red blood cell
A red blood cell is about 7 micrometres wide — small enough to squeeze single-file through your narrowest capillaries.
2.4×10⁵× smaller than you
Human egg cell
The human egg is about 0.12 mm across — the largest human cell and just barely visible to the naked eye as a tiny dot.
14,167× smaller than you
Amoeba
A large amoeba can reach half a millimetre. It is a single cell, yet big enough to spot under a simple microscope as it oozes along.
3,400× smaller than you
Ant
A typical ant is about 5 mm long. It can lift many times its own weight — astonishing strength packed into a tiny body.
340× smaller than you
Honeybee
A honeybee is about 15 mm long. Beating its wings around 200 times a second, it can carry its own weight in nectar.
113× smaller than you
Bee hummingbird
At about 5.5 cm, the bee hummingbird is the smallest bird on Earth — barely larger than the bee it is named after.
30.9× smaller than you
House mouse
A house mouse body is about 9 cm long (plus a tail just as long). Already about 20 times smaller than you.
18.9× smaller than you
House cat
A house cat is around 46 cm from nose to tail-base — still less than a third of your height.
3.7× smaller than you
You
A human is about 1.7 m tall. This is the reference for the whole journey: every other living thing is measured against you.
This is you
African elephant
An African elephant is about 6.5 m long — the largest living land animal, nearly four times your height.
3.8× taller than you
Tyrannosaurus rex
T. rex reached about 12 m from snout to tail — about seven of you laid end to end, and it has been extinct for 66 million years.
7.1× taller than you
Blue whale
The blue whale grows to about 30 m — the largest animal that has ever lived, around 18 times your height. Its heart alone is the size of a small car.
17.6× taller than you
Giant sequoia
The giant sequoia "General Sherman" stands about 84 m tall — the largest single tree by volume, roughly 49 times your height.
49.4× taller than you
Honey fungus
An Armillaria ostoyae in Oregon spreads about 3.8 km underground — the largest known organism on Earth, more than 2,000 times your height.
2,235× taller than you
You reached the largest living thing on Earth.
Every scroll makes life bigger. From a virus a ten-millionth of a metre across, life climbs ten orders of magnitude — through cells, insects, animals, you (1.7 m), whales and trees — to a honey fungus nearly four kilometres wide. The number stays the same, only the unit changes: nm, µm, mm, cm, m, km.
Sources: CDC and electron-microscopy figures for viruses and cells, standard biology references for animals and plants, the U.S. National Park Service (General Sherman) and the U.S. Forest Service (Armillaria ostoyae).
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