This is going to sound terribly, terribly wrong, but yes, size does matter. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be so darn impressed with big things. But we are! I mean, why would countries all over the world try to build the tallest skyscrapers if not because of the allure and awe they inspire?
Part of that awe and allure is in how small big things can make humans feel. And part of it is surprise in how things we take for granted as being well-sized for us humans sometimes just aren’t.
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Is this a lemon from a giant’s tree?
Because that thing looks like a dang basketball. If life ever throws a lemon like that at you, don’t make lemonade — duck.
“A few years back our garden gave birth to a 10.3 lb sweet potato,” the uploader wrote.
Just think of the pie you could make from that — and probably fries and some candied yams, too.
That’s an epic watermelon.
Sit that thing in a walk-in fridge for a few hours and then refresh an entire neighborhood on a hot summer’s day.
Wind turbine blades are massive.
Like, to move one, this island had to re-arrange and de-construct the roundabouts along a whole 20 km route to get it to its destination.
They don’t look so big in action, though.
But to give you an idea, the black speck toward the bottom of the lowest blade on this turbine is a human. Now there’s a job I’d rather not have.
You know you have some serious infrastructure when people can walk around on it.
Like this natural gas pipeline in India that looks like it’s pretty regularly used as a walking path by locals.
Now there’s a relaxation station for the whole family and then some.
I definitely wouldn’t want to have to move that couch even though it’s certainly modular, and I’m not even sure I’d want to own it. I wouldn’t mind have the living room that can accommodate it, however.
No half measures on this movie set.
Seriously, there’s a reason why The Lord of the Rings series stands up after almost 20 years — all the hard work that went into it, like the building of this gigantic “model” of Minas Tirith.
We usually think of meteorites as being handfuls of little rocks.
Even if they start out large, by the time they reach the surface, meteorites have typically broken up into many smaller pieces.
Not this one, the Willamette Meteorite, which weighs roughly 15 tons.
Yes, it’s no secret that cliffs can be tall.
But this view of the Cliffs of Gozo in Malta got a nice, scenic bit of perspective thanks to the person standing at the top. Whoa.
This is how big leatherback turtles get.
They’re kind of reminiscent of dinosaurs, aren’t they? What majestic creatures, and sadly, they’re endangered.
Speaking of dinosaurs…
A species of massive armadillos once existed, and their fossilized remains show that they could get even larger than the ones in this image. As big as a small car, in fact!
Here’s a nice reminder that wolves are not just wild dogs.
A husky is a fairly large breed, but the wolf next to this one makes it look like a puppy. Wow.
Coyotes aren’t exactly small either, but this one does a good job of showing the size of a bald eagle relative to it.
Check out that wingspan. I don’t think this coyote is going to get the snack it’s trying to take from the eagle.
This area is getting some weather.
It’s not exactly inclement weather, but that’s a big ol’ fog bank rolling in.
We’re hardly even a handful to some creatures.
Well, at least to whales, anyway. That’s a whale’s flipper next to a human skeleton, for reference.
Traffic lights don’t seem so high up that they should appear smaller, but looks can be deceiving.
Once one ends up on the ground, we can see that it’s about as big as the man trying to hug it right now.
Thanks to this museum, we can see just how big the Saturn V rockets we used to send into space during the ’60s and ’70s are.
As we can see, it’s so big that even one of these boosters could fit at least two of the people in this photo if they stood on top of each other.
Although it’s easy enough to understand that bears are bigger than most of us, the difference in size between them is pretty staggering.
For instance, it seems like that black bear and I could comfortably stand back to back, but that polar bear could probably use me as a teddy human if it wanted.
Seeing how a person measures up to just one of the bricks in the Great Pyramid of Giza does a lot to demonstrate its mind-blowing size.
It’s also hard not to wonder how long it could have taken to build such a monumental structure considering the level of technology at the time.
While this buffalo is just in this position to make tagging and blood testing easier, it also gives us an interesting sense of how large it is.
It seems obvious that a buffalo would be a massive animal, but did you really have you money on “its head is almost as large as your entire body” big?
Considering what they’re actually like, it’s kind of funny that we tend to imagine kiwis as small birds.
Maybe I’ve assumed that from how adorable they look sometimes, but I still can’t say I would’ve expected one to be as big as a baby that’s almost ready to take their first steps.
Even if we take into account how much larger most trees are than us, the size of a California Redwood is still incredibly staggering.
Even if a whole high school classroom joined hands and hugged one of these things, they’d probably still be short a few people to reach all the way around.
It’s easy to take for granted how big highway signs have to be for us to read them clearly.
Judging by how these people compare in size to the sign, you and me could probably play soccer on it without too much trouble.
I’m not sure why we’d actually do that, but there you go.
This woman is showing us two big size surprises in one.
For one thing, it turns out that both an elephant’s femur (right) and a triceratops’ femur (left) is almost the size of her entire body.
For another, I can’t say I expected the elephant’s femur to be slightly longer than the triceratops’.
Although life in a submarine involves infamously cramped conditions for their personnel, that doesn’t mean they’re small.
Considering how big this one is compared to its crew, in fact, it probably wouldn’t be so impossible for all of them to stand on top of it for this picture.
Although most of the snails we meet could probably fit on one of our fingers, that definitely not the case for the African land snail.
As we can see, this one is about the size of a small cat. I guess how cuddly it is compared to the furry feline is a matter of personal preference.
Fortunately, this whale shark is just curious and friendly because it definitely looks like it could eat this person if it wanted to.
I have to admit that I also want to get a look at whatever was brave enough to take a bite out of it.
It was probably a whale.
And maybe more of a mouthful to others.
Another one of those living dinosaurs, amirite? Although, it’s not a bad idea to be concerned about what might have taken this croc’s leg, too.
This should give you pause.
Hey-o. No, really though, the size of a tiger’s paw next to a man’s hand, it’s just ridiculous. These kitties don’t play around!
Another perspective on size here.
This is everything that can and regularly does fit inside a fire truck. They must play a mean game of Tetris!
Two scales of size.
For one, we have the sheer size of this WWII ship, the German battleship Gniesenau . For the other, the scale of damage a torpedo can cause, as it has reduced the might ship to a husk of its former self.
