As of November 2026, the blue whale is the biggest animal that has ever lived. It can be about 100 feet long and can weigh 150 to 200 tons, many times more than an elephant, the biggest land animal. It lives about 80 to 90 years, and it can eat about 4 tons of krill in a single day. A newborn calf is already about 23 to 25 feet long.
Blue whales were hunted almost to extinction in the 1900s. As of November 2026, hunting them is banned, and their numbers are slowly rising. Even so, blue whales are listed as endangered, which means they are at risk of dying out. A blue whale feeds by taking in a huge mouthful of water and krill, then pushing the water out through baleen plates, which trap the krill.
The polar bear is the largest land predator, though brown bears are also huge, as of November 2026. Most experts agree polar bears are the longest bears. The polar bear is the largest meat-eater that lives on land. Elephants are the heaviest living land animals, and a big male African elephant can weigh about 6 tons.
As of November 2026, the ostrich is the biggest bird in the world, and it cannot fly. It can be up to 9 feet tall, and one stride can be 10 to 16 feet long. The wandering albatross has the longest wings of any living bird, as much as 11 to 12 feet from tip to tip. Ostrich eggs are the biggest of any living land animal.
The whale shark is the biggest fish in the sea, as of November 2026. It is a shark, not a whale. Its mouth can be about 5 feet wide, with hundreds of rows of tiny teeth, but it does not chew with them. It filter-feeds, taking mostly plankton and small fish out of the water.
The sperm whale is the biggest of the toothed whales, as of November 2026, and males grow to about 52 feet long. It dives deep to hunt squid, and dives can last 45 minutes. The longest giant squid reported were about 59 to 60 feet long, but most that people find are 35 to 45 feet. Much of that length is arms and tentacles.
The Komodo dragon is the largest living lizard, as of November 2026, and can grow to about 10 feet long. Big male saltwater crocodiles reach 17 to 20 feet or more. The Japanese spider crab has legs that can spread about 12 feet from claw to claw. The goliath birdeater, a tarantula from South America, is the biggest spider by weight, though it hardly ever eats birds.
As of November 2026, the General Sherman Tree is the biggest tree in the world by the amount of wood in it. It is a tree, not an animal. Among animals, the blue whale is the biggest of all.
Words to know
- extinction: dying out
- endangered: at risk
- predator: hunting animal
- tentacles: long arms
