Animals
A member of the order Cetacea, the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is believed to be the largest animal ever to have lived. The maximum recorded weight was 190 tonnes for a specimen measuring 30 m (98 ft), while longer ones, up to 33.4 m (110 ft), have been recorded but not weighed.
The African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana), of the order Proboscidea, is the largest living land animal. A native of various open habitats in sub-Saharan Africa, this elephant is born commonly weighing about 100 kg (220 lb). The largest elephant ever recorded was shot in Angola in 1974. It was a male measuring 10.7 m (35 ft) from trunk to tail and 4.2 m (13.7 ft) lying on its side in a projected line from the highest point of the shoulder to the base of the forefoot, indicating a standing shoulder height of 4.0 m (13 ft).
- Table of heaviest living animals
The following is a list of the heaviest living animals, which are all cetaceans. These whales also qualify as the largest living mammals. Since no scale can accommodate the body of a large whale, most whales have been weighed by parts.
| Rank | Animal | Average mass |
Maximum mass |
Average total length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blue whale | 110 | 190 | 25.5 (84) |
| 2 | North Pacific right whale | 60 | 120 | 15.5 (51) |
| 3 | Southern right whale | 58 | 110 | 15.25 (50) |
| 4 | Fin whale | 57 | 120 | 19.5 (64.3) |
| 5 | North Atlantic right whale | 55 | 100 | 15 (49) |
| 6 | Bowhead whale | 54.5 | 120 | 15 (49) |
| 7 | Sperm whale | 31.25 | 57 | 13.25 (43.5) |
| 8 | Humpback whale | 29 | 48 | 13.5 (44) |
| 9 | Sei whale | 22.5 | 45 | 14.8 (49) |
| 10 | Gray whale | 19.5 | 45 | 13.5 (44) |
- Table of heaviest terrestrial animals
The following is a list of the heaviest wild land animals, which are all mammals. The African elephant is now listed as two species, the African bush elephant and the African forest elephant, as they are generally considered to be two separate species now.
| Rank | Animal | Average mass |
Maximum mass |
Average total length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | African bush elephant | 4.9 | 12.7 | 6 (18): Height* |
| 2 | Asian elephant | 4.15 | 8.0 | 6.8 (22) |
| 3 | African forest elephant | 2.8 | 6.0 | 6.2 (20) |
| 4 | White rhinoceros | 2.1 | 4.5 | 4.4 (14.5) |
| 5 | Indian rhinoceros | 1.9 | 4.0 | 4.2 (13.9) |
| 6 | Hippopotamus | 1.8 | 4.5 | 4 (13.2) |
| 7 | Javan rhinoceros | 1.715 | 2.3 | 3.8 (12.5) |
| 8 | Black rhinoceros | 1.1 | 2.9 | 4 (13.2) |
| 9 | Giraffe | 1.0 | 2 | 5.15 (16.9) |
| 10 | Gaur | 0.95 | 1.5 | 3.8 (12.5) |
Read more about this topic: Largest Organisms
Famous quotes containing the word animals:
“The animals that depend on instinct have an inherent knowledge of the laws of economics and of how to apply them; Man, with his powers of reason, has reduced economics to the level of a farce which is at once funnier and more tragic than Tobacco Road.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“The alcoholic trance is not just a haze, as though the eyes were also unshaven. It is not a mere buzzing in the ears, a dizziness or disturbance of balance. One arrives in the garden again, at nursery time, when the gentle animals are fed and in all the world there are only toys.”
—William Gass (b. 1924)
“There is no instant of time when one creature is not being devoured by another. Over all these numerous races of animals man is placed, and his destructive hand spares nothing that lives. He kills to obtain food and he kills to clothe himself; he kills to adorn himself; he kills in order to attack and he kills to defend himself; he kills to instruct himself and he kills to amuse himself; he kills to kill. Proud and terrible king, he wants everything and nothing resists him.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)