Which Animal Is The Biggest, Heaviest, Tallest on Earth

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Blue Whale and Megalodon size comparison

The Biggest Animal in the World

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the largest animal in the world is the Antarctic blue whale. They can weigh up to more than 180 tons and possess an incredible length of up to 30 meters.

The heart of a blue whale is equivalent to a small car. The noise they make when swimming in the ocean is louder than the sound of jet engines. The blue whale is also the largest whale in the world.

In addition to the blue whale, one of the largest fish that ever lived on Earth is the Megalodon shark. This species became extinct millions of years ago. The Natural History Museum (UK) describes Megalodon as "the largest shark in the world". They have an estimated length of 16-18 m, which is smaller than blue whales.

The Heaviest Animal in the World

Once again, the blue whale has been named the heaviest animal in the world. Various reports indicate that this giant mammal has a weight ranging from nearly 140 tons to more than 180 tons.

The BBC (UK) even reported that the mouth of a blue whale is large enough to hold up to 100 people and is said to eat about 6 tons of krill per day.

Tallest Animal in the World

Technically, blue whales are the tallest animals in the world because they grow up to 30 meters in length. Next, the BBC reported that the lion's mane jellyfish has tentacles about the same length as a blue whale.

If height is determined based on upright posture, the tallest land animal is the giraffe. National Geographic magazine estimates they range in height from more than 4 m to nearly 6 m.

The World's Largest Land Animal

If "big" is taken in terms of general size or weight, the African bush elephant is the largest land animal in the world. They can weigh up to 11 tons and grow up to 4 meters tall.

Largest Land Animal

Smallest Animal in the World

This is still controversial because the scientific community is still undecided about what constitutes an organism. According to the traditional definition, Professor Nicola Di Girolamo explained in an article on The Conversation in 2019 that an organism is made up of many cells. Based on that, a recently discovered parasitic jellyfish group called Myxozoa, only 20 micrometers (µm) in size, is considered the smallest "animal" in the world.

In terms of vertebrates, the smallest species to date is the frog Paedophryne amauensisuensis with an average body length of less than 8 mm.

The First Animal to Live on Earth

According to the Smithsonian Institution (USA), sponges are one of the first animals in the world. They probably lived in low oxygen levels in the ocean at least 700 million years ago.

As for land animals, a millipede in Scotland dates to 425 million years ago making it the oldest land animal discovered through fossils, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, scientists believe that earthworms appeared before this millipede despite a lack of fossil evidence.