SCHOOLBOY Finley O’Neill stumbled upon a giant find during his latest adventure.

The nine-year-old found a giant puffball which measures a whopping 66.5 inches.

And the Nields Primary School pupil could become a record beater – a spokeswoman for the Guinness World Records say they do not currently have a record listed for largest mushroom and would like to hear from him.

Finley discovered the giant fungi in an overgrown woodland area near to his home while walking the family’s dogs.

Mum Emma, of Slaithwaite, said he regularly goes off exploring.

She said: “He came to the house and said ‘mum there’s a massive mushroom’ – he’d been saying it for weeks and I’d not been to look.

“I decided to go up and see for myself and couldn’t believe it.

“It’s in the middle of nowhere really and there are lots of much smaller mushrooms growing around it and some dead ones too.

“We didn’t know what to do with it, whether to pick it or leave it. We decided to leave it where it is so might grow some more.”

It is not known how much the mushroom weighs, but Finley’s granddad, Roger, did a bit of research and discovered a British specimen was 64 inches in circumference.

The O’Neill family measured the puffball and it came in at a staggering 66.5 inches.

Finley, along with dad Michael, sisters Esmee, 13, and Millie, 11, regularly walk their dogs in the overgrown area.

It is just minutes from their Slaithwaite home but it’s Finley’s biggest find of his adventures so far.

A spokeswoman for the Guinness World Records said they only had a record of heaviest fungi, called the ‘chicken of the woods’ mushroom (Laetiporus sulphureus) which weighed 45.35 kg (100 lb) and was found in the New Forest, Hampshire, UK by Giovanni Paba of Broadstone, Dorset on 15 October 1990.

Back in 2008 the Examiner reported how Robert Williams found a monster mushroom in topsoil while working on his allotment off Cemetery Road, Edgerton.

The giant puffball fungi is something of a fungal delicacy. They are called puffballs because brown, dust-like spores are emitted when the mature body bursts.

They are common at this time of year as they thrive in the weather conditions.

Currently, news organisations around the world are reporting finds which measure nine inches in diameter, in Ireland, to a 1.5 kilogramme puffball in Sweden, which was discovered in woods.

In 2004 a giant mushroom measuring four times the size of a football was found by a couple in Aberdeenshire, measuring 3ft (36inches) long and weighing around 9kg.