On May 31, 2024, researchers announced that the New Caledonian fork fern (Tmesipteris oblanceolate), a leafy, tendrilled plant native to several Pacific islands, has a genome that contains an astonishing 160 billion base pairs, making it the largest genome ever discovered, researchers reported in iScience.

The human genome is made up of 3 billion base pairs of DNA. But that’s nothing compared with the New Caledonian fork fern (Tmesipteris oblanceolate), a leafy, tendrilled plant native to several Pacific islands. The finding could help scientists understand how genomes grow so large, and how these massive sets of genes affect species’ adaptability and survival.

DNA is made up of base pairs, two molecules connected by hydrogen bonds. The smallest genome discovered so far belongs to the mammalian parasite Encephalitozoon intestinalis, with a paltry 2.25 million base pairs.