Re: what animal has the most chromosomes?

Dear Letty,
                    Your curiousity does you proud, but other organisms should 
also be considered when considering chromosomes.
  Believe it or not, a hermit crab has a grand total of 254 chromosomes (127 
pairs), but some ferns such as Ophioglossum can apparently beat this record 
with 768 - outside your realm of the animal kingdom.
  On the other hand, minimum number games are won by the animal 
kingdom's Ascaris (a roundworm) with 2 (one pair) against  the two pairs 
owned by a little daisy(4 chromosomes) Perhaps these simplistic answers will 
guide you to a lifelong and life-loving interest in the respective creatures and 
other life-forms that you pick from this intriguing list. Even mathematicians 
would now turn to the study of why in tarnation do these things have so 
many or so little.
  On a more everyday level, perhaps yopu might be interested to have a 
reminder that the humble and ever-so-useful fruitfly has 4 pairs of very-well-
mapped chromosomes.

Very old and therefore easily found ref.( in the US.)---
EJ. Gardiner,1960 Principles of Genetics, pp.150-152.