The animal kingdom is filled with wonderful species of every type, size, color, and nature.You will find giant elephants and you’ll also find minute insects but all of them fall under the same kingdom. Scientists have some specific criteria upon which they base their categories.Let’s talk about fascinating animals of great sizes in this article! First off, the largest animal on Earth is the blue whale. A fully grown blue whale weighs about 180 tons (396 lb) and they are nearly 30 m (98 ft) long. The weight of an elephant and the weight of a blue whale’s tongue are almost equal; a blue whale’s heart weighs as much as a vehicle! These are some of the largest animals in the world. Blue whales are excellent swimmers and they can swim at a speed of 18.6 mph (30 kph). Don’t worry, these gentle giant-like animals can’t swallow you. They are used to eating mainly krill. Krill are tiny shrimp-like animals. Krill weighing nearly 79,366 lb (36,000 kg) are consumed by a single adult blue whale in a day.The African elephant is the largest living land animal on Earth. It can weigh nearly 7 tons (7,000 kg) and grow up to 10.6 m (34 ft). This elephant is great with memory because of its large brain that is one of the biggest in the animal kingdom. Elephants use their trunk to pick up both heavy materials and even a small flower! They use their tail for maintaining balance. There are two types of elephants: Asian and African species. Elephants are social and intelligent beings.Newborn baby giraffes are taller than adult humans of average height, and adult giraffes are the tallest mammals on earth. Due to their long neck, they can eat leaves from tall trees. A giraffe’s tongue is nearly half a meter long. There are four species of giraffe found in the world. The average height of a fully grown giraffe varies between 4.8-6 m (15.7-19.7 ft).Brown bears are the largest living carnivores. They weigh nearly 0.9 tons (907 kg) and are 10 ft (3 m) tall when they stand on their hind legs. Their tail is huge and bushy and contributes to a major part of their body weight.Whale sharks are about 12 m (39 ft) long and are one of the largest living fish. They weigh nearly 22 tons (48501 lb) and have very good eyesight. Their diet mainly consists of tiny plankton. They are one of the world’s most vulnerable creatures, and the most hunted. They are found in tropical seas.The largest living reptile is the saltwater crocodile. Weighing around 450 kg (0.45 tons), it grows to around 5.2 m (17.1 ft) but the maximum height it can reach is nearly 6.3 m (20.6 ft). They are found commonly in Asia and Australia.The ostrich is the largest creature ever found in the bird family. Weighing about 150 kg (0.15 tons), they grow about 2.7 m (8.8 ft) tall. The eye of an ostrich is the largest among bird species. Ostriches are toothless and can live without water for many days. Their cousin the emu is only found in Australia.Let’s come to amphibians now. The largest-ever amphibian is the Chinese salamander. They can weigh up to 60 kg (132 lb) and they reach a length of 5.9 ft (1.8 m) (one of the longest amphibians). They are also known as living fossils because the Chinese salamanders have changed very little since the time of their ancestors. Many endemic reptile species are found in Asia.The Goliath beetle is one of the largest ever insects, found in African tropical forests. The Goliath beetle has a weight of 3.5 oz (100 g) (they are the heaviest beetle variety) and it grows to 4.5 in (11.4 cm) in length.Are you interested now? Let’s learn more about animals on Earth.What is the smallest animal on land?Wondering which is the smallest living animal on land? Well, this title belongs to an amphibian species. It is a frog called Monte Iberia eleuth. This is an endemic species found only in the easternmost part of Cuba. Monte Iberia eleuth is found in high altitude tropical rainforest, that is 1960 ft (597 m) above sea level. It can survive only in the presence of rich humidity. It is a Critically Endangered species. Mining and pollution have disturbed its habitat. Monte Iberia eleuth is only 0.4 in (10.1 mm) in length and weighs just a few grams. They are terrestrial species. They are used to eating ants and mites.What is the largest sea creature to ever exist?Blue whales are the largest animal to have ever existed on the planet. They have a lifespan of 80-90 years and some of them have even lived 110 years. These carnivores are spread across all oceans. Its main source of diet is plankton and krill. They dive into the ocean for a length of nearly 1640 ft (500 m) in search of food. They have bristles in their mouth that filter plankton from the water. When a blue whale needs air to breathe, it comes to the surface. Then, the air and pressurized vapor that escapes from its blowhole can reach 9 m (29.5 ft) high.They give birth to young ones once every three years and carry them in their womb for nearly 11-12 months. At the beginning of its life, a newborn blue whale weighs nearly 29.8 tons (27,000 kg). They are the largest animals in the oceans. The baby blue whale drinks 132 gal (600 l) of milk every day.Protection of blue whales was provided by the International Whaling Commission in 1966. The world conservation Union Red List classified blue whales as endangered.What was bigger than the megalodon?The megalodon is one of the largest and heaviest fishes that ever lived on Earth, and it belongs to the extinct species of mega-tooth shark. The megalodon fossil has been found in tropical and temperate seas across the coastlines of all continents. By the end of the epoch, the megalodon was extinct. Based on discoveries of fossilized teeth and vertebrae, we can assign megalodon the title of the largest fish ever discovered.Megalodons and the great white sharks that are found in the present world could be related because of similarities in their tooth shape. The giant megalodons were not cold-blooded like most fish, but they managed their body temperature with mechanisms similar to great white sharks. Megalodon was the top carnivore in the ocean world 15 million to 2 million years ago. Their carnivore diet included fish, baleen whales, toothed whales, sirenians, and seals. Juvenile megalodons could have been prey for other large sharks. These monstrous sea creatures were so large that a group of humans could easily fit in their mouths. The reason for their extinction is thought to be due to the displacement of their diet, due to the Earth’s cooling.What does the biggest land animal eat in their diet?Elephants are vegetarian. When they live in the wild they eat plants, shrubs, herbs, the bark of trees, and fruit. Based on the season and what variety of vegetation is available, elephants depend on it for food. When elephants are not in the wild they are fed with a nutritional diet to substitute the variety of vegetation they have in the wild.Giraffes are found in savannah grasslands in South America. They are herbivorous and eat leaves shoots and fruits. They weigh around 0.5-1 ton (500-1000 kg). They can easily reach the leaves and roots of tall trees because of their long, long neck. Giraffes have 32 teeth to grip leaves. The most common diet of giraffes is acacia leaves and shoots.Bears have a very good olfactory sense, they can smell their food from a long distance. They are omnivorous. They can detect fruits when they are ripe because of their good eyesight. The giant-like bears eat berries, fish, insects, birds and mammals. About 70% of the bear’s diet excludes meat.Ostriches do not have teeth so they grind their food with the help of pebbles. In one go ostriches can carry about 2.2 lb (1 kg) of stones in their mouth. An ostrich can live without water for several days. It does not need to drink water to sustain life. It compensates for the lack of water with the metabolic intake of water and moisture in roots, seeds and insects it has ingested.Animals come in various shapes and forms. Some of them are microscopic (like the Cuban frog!) and some of them are huge, like the blue whale. Classification of animals based on their sizes, diet and habitat makes it easier to study their features. The blue whale is the biggest animal on earth and the elephant is the biggest land animal, yet their features are so distinct.Most of these distinctive species are on the brink of extinction. The reason for their extinction is due to man-made situations. Overgrazing, hunting and climate change are a few reasons why certain species are endangered. Even the largest animal ever on the planet is on the brink of extinction due to humans. Only a stable balance between humans and other creatures in nature can save the Earth.
The animal kingdom is filled with wonderful species of every type, size, color, and nature.
