23 of the biggest living animals in the world

Across the land and through the waves of the sea, there is one animal that is bigger than any other living things in the world: the blue whale. This majestic, carnivorous sea creature weighs a colossal 180 tonnes; that’s around 180,000 kilos! When blue whale calves are born, they can weigh up to 2.75 tonnes and put on around 90 kilos every day during the first year of their lives.

Found in sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s second largest land animal. Funny thing is, hippos are actually semi-aquatic mammals and spend the majority of their day in rivers and lakes to keep their over 900-kilo body cool under the blazing African sun!

Find hippos adorable? They pale in comparison to these 21 photos of the cutest wild animals in the world.

Eastern gorillas are found in the lowlands and mountains of Africa. Even with a diet of stems, bamboo shoots, and fruit, male gorillas can weigh up to 200 kilos. This makes them the largest living primates. However, their population is drastically decreasing in size. In the 1990s, there were about 17,000 eastern lowland gorillas. Sadly, scientists estimate that there is less than 50 per cent of that now.

If Peter Rabbit were a Flemish rabbit he’d definitely need a bigger blue jacket. Hailing from Belgium, the nine kilo Flemish rabbits were originally bred for their fur and meat, not to keep as giant fluffy pets. But if you wanted a real-life snuggle bunny, you could get a Flemish rabbit in black, blue, fawn, light grey, steel grey, sand or white.

Here are some other adorable animals – but these ones have a dark side!

This giant squid was found in Norway in 1928. Here, biologists are measuring one of its tentacles, but overall, the squid is nine metres long. As the largest invertebrates on Earth – meaning they don’t have a backbone – they can weigh over 180 kilos.

Don’t let a manta ray’s nine-metre long, 900-kilo body fool you. Unlike stingrays that have tails that can hurt you, manta rays are usually harmless. Sometimes they just jump out of the water, which scientists interpret as the manta ray needing to remove parasites from its body, feeding, courting or communicating.

The world’s largest fish is called a whale but’s it’s actually a shark. But whale sharks are not the only animals with surprisingly misleading names. The name comes because of it’s massive size; they can grow up to 12 metres long. You would think these enormous sharks would want to eat you given the chance, but to whale sharks, humans are friends, not food. Whale sharks typically eat krill, fish eggs and smaller fish and are known to be gentle around scuba divers.

If you have a fear of rodents, your skin might crawl looking at the world’s largest rodent. Capybaras can weigh anywhere between 25 and 80 kilos, with the females being a bit larger than males. Unlike rats, capybaras have webbed feet to help them swim and don’t have tails.

If you think the capybara is a wacky looking specimen, check out 30 of the weirdest looking animals in the world.

Although a reticulated python can grow a bit longer than a green anaconda, the 30-cm wide diameter of an anaconda’s body earns it the title of world’s largest snake. They grow more than nine metres long and can weigh more than 250 kilos, especially when they eat wild pigs, deer and even jaguars.

If you ever wanted to be a real mother of dragons, consider getting a Komodo dragon, or maybe just have a look at one in the zoo. Komodo dragons are the biggest lizards on Earth weighing up to 135 kilos. Like the fire-breathing dragons of your fantasies, Komodo dragons have poisonous bacteria in their saliva that will kill their prey in 24 hours after being bitten.

Of the three species of cassowaries found in tropical regions, Australia’s southern cassowary is the biggest, weighing 55 kilos. Although the bird is known for being the second-heaviest bird on Earth, they’re better known for their hot tempers. In an article on Smithsonian.com, it’s said that cassowaries occasionally get into kick fights with inanimate objects.

Saltwater crocodiles can weigh up to 450 kilos and males can measure up to six metres long. The carnivores prowl beneath the water before attacking water buffalos, monkeys and even sharks. In Australia saltwater crocodiles are now a protected species – as are all endemic species – and have gone from being almost extinct in the 1970s to now being widespread in large numbers.

Also known as killer whales, orcas show no mercy to penguins, sea turtles or even sharks when they get hungry. An average-sized orca can eat about 220 kilos of food a day – this is probably why they can weigh up to 5500 kilos. Orcas are the largest dolphins swimming in the freezing waters near the Polar regions and the equator.

One of the best ways to recognise a sperm whale in the ocean is by their massive heads. Although they do have the largest brains of any living thing on Earth, it’s the fact that their heads are filled with spermaceti that makes their biology so fascinating. To this day, scientists only theorise that spermaceti help sperm whales stay buoyant. There has to be something that keeps all 35 tonnes of sperm whales afloat!

It may have a huge brain, but it can’t match the smarts of these 15 animals that are probably smarter than you.

Under the sea, or well under the Pacific Ocean, live a species of crabs much larger than The Little Mermaid’s Sebastian. Japanese spider crabs can grow up to 3.5-metres wide, supporting a body that’s barely longer than 30cm long. Scuttling around with 20 kilos of meat makes this crustacean a dinner favourite in Japan.

Tipping the scale at 4000 kilos, the name of the largest seals in the world comes from their trunk-like snouts rather than their mammoth bodies. Feeding exclusively at sea, it feasts on fish and squid living near the surface of the water as well as those from the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean.

Dalmatian pelicans aren’t your average beach bird. In fact, they’re much larger than average birds because they can grow up to 1.75 metres in height, weigh up to 15 kilos, and can have a wingspan of three metres. Dalmatian pelicans are one of the few birds that can still fly with this much weight.

If Big Bird from Sesame Street had a real-life equivalent, it would definitely be an ostrich. They are the tallest and heaviest birds of all time. Their 150-kilo bodies make them unable to fly, but they can still outrun you at 70 kilometres per hour. Even an ostrich egg is big: they can even weigh up to 1.5 kilos!

While under the sea there are some pretty large animals, the tallest land animal is the giraffe. Full-grown adults can grow up to six metres tall. To get blood pumping from their hearts all the way to the top of their brains, giraffes have a heart that weighs about 12 kilos, while their half-metre-long tongue is used to eat up to 35 kilos of leaves every day from the tallest trees in the African savanna.

Now, this is a fish you probably won’t pick up at the pet store anytime soon, no matter how big your tank is! In the category of fish with bones (sharks have skeletons made up of cartilage, not bones), sunfish are the heaviest of them all, with the heaviest specimen to be weighed to date a whopping 2300 kg. Like sharks, they have a dorsal fin that often gets mistaken for a shark fin when they swim near the top of warm, tropical oceans.

Salamanders are the largest amphibians in the world, with the largest measuring 1.2 metres long and weighing around 22 kilos, hailing from China. Similar to most amphibians, salamanders spend their lives underwater. But these guys don’t have gills. Instead, their wrinkly skin absorbs oxygen to help them breathe.

To find the largest land carnivores in the world, you need to travel to the Arctic. Female polar bears can weigh up to 300 kilos and males up to 600. In comparison, a newborn polar bear cub weighs merely half a kilo. Although it looks white, their fur is transparent, their skin black and they have a blue tongue. To fill those large bellies, the world’s largest roaming land carnivore spends 50 per cent of its life travelling across sea ice in search of food. But with sea ice rapidly receding due to climate change, the plight of the polar bear is in sharp decline and has been listed as vulnerable on the threatened species list.

Check out these other animals that are holding extinction at bay by the slimmest of margins.

In the African savannahs, deserts and high rainforests live the world’s largest land mammal. Sustaining over 9000 kilos of weight, African bush elephants only eat plants, grass and fruit – 150 kilos of it a day! Elephants can use their trunks (which contain more than 40,000 muscles) to lift anything up to 180 kilos. Unfortunately, the largest land animal doesn’t have the largest population; 25,000 elephants die because of poaching every year.

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Source: RD.com