Largest organisms one of the largest and oldest clonal colonies on Earth. Among animals, the largest species are all marine mammals, specifically whales. The blue whale is believed to be the largest animal to have ever lived. The largest land animal classification is also dominated by mammals, with the African bush elephant being the most massive of these. The largest single-stem tree by wood volume and mass is the giant sequoia ("Sequoiadendron giganteum"), native to Sierra Nevada and California; it typically grows to a height of and in diameter. Multiple-stem trees such as banyan can be enormous. Thimmamma Marrimanu in India spreads
Largest organisms namadicus" may have been the largest land mammal ever, based on extensive research of fragmentary leg bone fossils from one individual, with a maximum estimated size of 22 tonnes. The Permian era "Cotylorhynchus", from what is now the southern United States, probably was the largest of all synapsids (most of which became extinct 250 million years ago), at and 2 tonnes. The largest carnivorous synapsid was "Anteosaurus" from what is now South Africa during Middle Permian era. "Anteosaurus" was long, and weighed about . The largest living reptile, a representative of the order Crocodilia, is the saltwater crocodile ("Crocodylus porosus")