Scientists reach tallest tree ever found in Amazon

The giant tree is an angelim vermelho measuring 88.5 meters (290 feet) tall and 9.9 meters (32 feet) around -- the biggest ever identified in the Amazon.

After three years of planning, five expeditions and a two-week trek through dense jungle, scientists have reached the tallest tree ever found in the Amazon rainforest, a towering specimen the size of a 25-storey building.

The giant tree, whose top juts out high above the canopy in the Iratapuru River Nature Reserve in northern Brazil, is an angelim vermelho (scientific name: Dinizia excelsa) measuring 88.5 meters (290 feet) tall and 9.9 meters (32 feet) around -- the biggest ever identified in the Amazon, scientists say.

Researchers first spotted the enormous tree in satellite images in 2019 as part of a 3D mapping project.

A team of academics, environmentalists and local guides mounted an expedition to try to reach it later that year. But after a 10-day trek through difficult terrain, exhausted, low on supplies and with a team member falling ill, they had to turn back.

Three more expeditions to the reserve's remote Jari Valley region, which sits at the border between the states of Amapa and Para, reached several other gigantic trees, including the tallest Brazil nut tree ever recorded in the Amazon -- 66 meters.

But the enormous angelim vermelho remained elusive until the September 12-25 expedition, when researchers traveled 250 kilometers (155 miles) by boat up rivers with treacherous rapids, plus another 20 kilometers on foot across mountainous jungle terrain to reach it.

One person on the 19-member expedition was bitten by what the team doctor believes was a poisonous spider.