For Scale
Smallest
Largest
Translations are on the way. Everything is in English for now.
Son ancêtre sauvage, la téosinte, ne portait qu'une douzaine de grains durs sur un minuscule épi. Avant que le papier toilette ne se répande, les premiers colons américains se servaient souvent d'épis de maïs séchés pour s'essuyer le derrière.
Tip: tapping a card on the shelf below also changes the green one.
Measured corner to corner. Close, but less exact than a card, coin or ruler.
Enter a size between 3 and 120 inches, for example 13.3 or 27.
Swaps the outline above for a scale to line up with your ruler.
Check with something different from what you calibrated with. It should match this outline exactly.
Hey! I'm Matthew, a zoologist with an obsession for all the wee beasties and critters of the world. Books and screens almost never show animals at their true size, so you can never quite get a grasp on just how teeny the Pink Fairy Armadillo, or how large a Blue Whale's eyeball really is. So I made Nature to Scale, where every specimen is drawn from published measurements and shown at its true size on your screen. Hold your hand up to it.
Even the Goliath Bird-Eating Tarantula... if you dare!
Each drawing is made from reference photographs, and the measurement it is scaled to is cited under Sources. If a size looks wrong, use “Suggest A Correction” on that specimen and I will check it.
© 2026 Matthew Speight. All rights reserved. Nature to Scale™, its illustrations, its compiled measurements and its design may not be copied, downloaded for reuse, redistributed, or used in other websites, apps, exhibitions or classroom materials for sale, without written permission. You are welcome to link to any page and to share screenshots for personal, non-commercial use with a credit to naturetoscale.com.
Educators and publishers: permission is usually given gladly! Please get in touch.
Version 1.0.0
Nature to Scale is free, with no ads and no tracking. If you've found this useful, a small donation helps pay for new species and illustrations, and to keep the whole thing up and running. Many thanks!
Longueur de l'épi : 20 cm (7,87 po)
Son ancêtre sauvage, la téosinte, ne portait qu'une douzaine de grains durs sur un minuscule épi. Avant que le papier toilette ne se répande, les premiers colons américains se servaient souvent d'épis de maïs séchés pour s'essuyer le derrière.
Sur cette page, le spécimen Épi de maïs est dessiné à sa taille réelle sur votre écran. Calibrez une fois avec une carte bancaire ou une règle, et le dessin correspondra à l'original.
Nature to Scale est gratuit, sans publicité ni pistage. Soutenez le site (et la recherche zoologique !) sur Ko-fi