Among animals, as, indeed, among people, there are champions worthy of getting into the Guinness Book of Records. Some of them are recognized as the strongest, others - the fastest. And some can only boast of their enormous weight or number of teeth. But today we are only interested in one category, which we will discuss below.
There are many land and sea inhabitants on Earth who can compete for the title of the heaviest animal in the world. If you ask passers-by on the street what kind of animal is the hardest, you can hear a variety of answers: an elephant and a buffalo, a whale and a shark, a hippo and even a giraffe. But in this article we must name the only terrestrial inhabitant whose weight and size significantly exceeds the parameters of competitors. You will find out how much an elephant and a hippopotamus weigh, and whether they can be considered the heaviest. First, get to know some of the giants that live on land.
Kodiak Bear
This is not the heaviest terrestrial animal, but I would like to mention it in our review. A subspecies of brown bears, which in many countries is under state protection. The average weight of a male exceeds 700 kilograms, and females - 300 kilograms. It is necessary to say that cases have been recorded when the weight of kodiak exceeded a ton.
White (polar) bear
This is the heaviest carnivore on the land. The largest polar bear weighed a little more than a ton and had a body length of about three meters. The growth of a predator standing on its paws was 3.39 m. The average body length of the polar bear males is about two and a half meters, the height at the withers is up to one and a half meters, and the average weight reaches eight hundred kilograms. Bears are approximately half the size of males; their weight does not exceed 300 kilograms. It is interesting that one hundred thousand years ago (in the Pleistocene era) a huge polar bear lived on the earth, whose weight exceeded 1.2 tons, and its size - four meters in length.
hippopotamus
This is one of the largest and heaviest animals living on Earth. The weight of large males often exceeds four tons, so the hippopotamus is worthy of competition to the rhino in the fight for the second largest mass among the land inhabitants.
Now the hippopotamus in natural conditions is found only in Africa, south of the Sahara, although in ancient, for example, ancient times, it had a wider range. This giant lived in North Africa, and scientists also believe that he lived in the Middle East. However, by the early Middle Ages it was destroyed in these regions. In 2006, the International Union for Conservation of Nature recognized the hippo as vulnerable.
The number of these animals at that time did not exceed one hundred and fifty thousand heads. Natives of Africa destroy hippos primarily for meat, so bloody wars and instability in many countries of the continent force hungry people to seek food, thereby causing enormous damage to the animal population.
African elephant
This is the heaviest animal in the world, living on land. It differs from the brothers living on other continents not only in body weight, but also in huge ears, which help it to feel most comfortable under the rays of the scorching African sun.
The tusks of these giants are very expensive. It was they who almost became the reason for the complete extermination of elephants. A huge number of animals were killed for expensive trophies. The situation with the disappearance of the population was saved by nature reserves and national parks.
The weight of African elephants is impressive: adult males weigh more than 7.5 tons, but the heaviest land animal is very mobile, swims and feels confident even on rocky terrain. African elephants are herbivores. They feed on young shoots of trees and shrubs, grass. An adult consumes up to one hundred kilograms of green mass per day. Animals form small herds of 9-14 individuals. In addition to man, in nature elephants have no enemies.
Knowing how many elephants and hippos weigh different types of bears, you can easily determine the leader by body weight. This, of course, is the African elephant, which is the heaviest land animal. It's time to meet the underwater inhabitants. Perhaps the heaviest animal in the world lives in the depths of the sea.
Whale shark
This is the largest shark among its relatives. Despite its impressive size (up to twenty meters) and impressive weight (up to twenty tons), it is not the heaviest marine animal. Representatives of this species live in the southern and northern seas. Northern individuals are much larger.
This gray-brown giant, covered with white spots, the location of which is unique to each individual, lives for about seventy years. They feed by filtering plankton and filtering the water. A shark passes 350 tons of water per day and eats more than two hundred kilograms of plankton. In the mouth of this "fish" can accommodate up to five people, its jaws are strewn with fifteen thousand small teeth.
But these inhabitants of the depths are never the first to attack a person, and many scuba divers even touch them. Whale sharks are little studied and very slow. Their number is small, so the species is listed in the Red Book.
Sperm Whale - Toothed Whale
Another very large, but not the heaviest animal. The weight of an adult male is about seventy tons, and his body length reaches twenty meters. The body shape of the sperm whale (in the form of a drop) allows him to make long trips in a short time (during the migration period).
Sperm whales, unlike whales, are held in groups of up to 150 animals. The representative of the species has a huge rectangular head, squeezed on the sides. It makes up one third of the total body of the whale. Below is a mouth with cone-shaped teeth. In these animals, the lower jaw is mobile and can open almost 90 degrees, which helps to capture a fairly large prey.
Spermaceti whales (sperm whales) have one spiracle located in front of the head. It is slightly shifted to the left. Sperm whales feed on cephalopods and fish. But at the same time they can attack seals, dive to the bottom for squids, crabs, sponges and shellfish, sinking to a depth of more than 400 meters.
Blue whale - the heaviest animal
This is truly the largest animal on our planet. The body length reaches thirty meters, and the mass of blue whale is 180 tons and above. In this species of whales, females are slightly larger than males.
It's hard to imagine, but the language of this sea giant weighs about 2.7 tons, which is comparable to the weight of the Indian elephant. The blue whale has the largest mammalian heart: it weighs 900 kilograms. To imagine its size, look at the Mini Cooper. They are quite comparable in size and weight.
The heaviest animal in the world has an elongated and rather slender body. On a huge head are disproportionately small eyes. The sharp muzzle has a wide lower jaw. The blue whale has a breather, from which when exhaling it releases a fountain of water, reaching a height of 10 meters. In front of the breath is a clearly visible longitudinal ridge - the so-called breakwater.
This giant has a dorsal fin, strongly offset back. Compared to body size, it is quite small and has the shape of a triangle. Its back edge is covered with scratches, forming an individual pattern for each whale.
