I've been reading the wonderful book "Cell Biology by the Numbers" (https://t.co/rLzAiv32Dq ). Here's a thread of striking things I learned from the book (or related reading)

1. In terms of raw genomic information, human beings are
unimpressive. Many plants & amphibians, for instance, have larger genomes. We're not so much the genomic crown of creation as a cul-de-sac of creation.

I haven't checked, but this graph suggests it may be possible to have a pet snail more genetically complex than you. Or keep (be kept by?) a houseplant that's more genetically complex

2. In fact, the herb Paris japonica has the largest known genome, ~150 billion base pairs, about 50x the human genome. The lungfish has more than 100 billion.

3. What are Paris japonica and the lungfish doing with all that genomic information? No idea! But what a great question!