Beneath the land that surrounds Oregon's Blue Mountain lurks a creature of colossal proportions, able to kill entire forests at a whim and making dinosaurs, blue whales and woolly mammoths look like gnats along the way. It's threatening to consume another hapless forest in time and what are we doing about it? Absolutely nothing.

The creature described is called Armillaria and it's a huge fungus the size of 1,600 football fields. It's subterranean in nature and feeds off the local vegetation by attaching tentacle-like structures on to roots and draining life away.

For almost a decade, it was disputed whether the Armillaria is a group of fungi or one huge creature. With the advent of DNA identification technology, it was discovered that it is, indeed, just a single creature. Scientists have considered eliminating it to preserve forests, but were stumped on how to do it. There's just not enough weed whacker out there to kill it, so a live-and-let-live policy was adopted.

The organism is estimated to be some 8,000 years old and is believed to be capable of growing some more. If this happens, fir forests surrounding the area could be in trouble. The good thing is that the humongous fungus grows very slowly, so we might still devise a plot to stop it before a full-blown catastrophe happens.

Some of us did know that the largest organism in the planet belonged to one type of fungus: the Amillaria ostoyae. It's like us knowing life existed on Mars.

To date, a fungus of the same species was considered the largest living organism - it was found in the state of Washington and covered 1,500 acres of land. Recently though, a new organism was discovered and is now claiming rights to being the largest living organism.

The recently-discovered Amillaria was in the Malheur National Forest in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon! It's estimated to cover 2,200 acres and aged at least 2,400 years. Mario, this is one baby you might want to bring to Koopa...

How do they get so big? Scientists do believe that the dry state of Oregon could have spurred the large growth of these "Honey Mushrooms". Competing for land to grow on, these mushrooms sprout rhizomorphs, which are tough, stringy things that grow unchecked below ground. So the huge mushroom doesn't actually rise up, it digs even deeper.

Despite their name, though, the honey mushrooms aren't tasty. But yes, they are edible, and completely safe. Here's the salt, Mario. Bon appetit!