Which animal is the largest
Which animal is the largest
When answering the question about the largest in the worldAn animal such as a giant as an elephant will come to mind a lot, but this giant, in fact, occupies only an honorable second place, considerably inferior in mass and size to a marine mammal, the blue (blue) whale.
Blue whale - the largest animal on the planet
The blue whale is a truly huge creature. It is the largest not only of the living now, but also of all who ever lived on our planet. For example, it is twice heavier than the brachiosaurus - the largest of the dinosaurs that lived on planet Earth. If you compare the blue whale and the African elephant, then the first is 5-6 times heavier.
The dimensions and mass of the blue whale is indeedIt is striking: its length can reach 30 meters (which approximately corresponds to the height of a 10-storey building), but such specimens are considered particularly large, the average whale has a length of 22-25 m. The weight of the adult totals up to 125-150, and even 180 tons !! Only the language of a mammal has a mass of 2.5 to 4 (in large specimens) tons. The weight of the heart of a blue whale can reach up to a ton (this, however, is 2-3 times less than in toothed whales), and the lung volume reaches 3 thousand liters.
The blue whale is a slender animal. The length of his body greatly dominates the width. About a quarter of the length of the body falls on the head.
Blue whales live in almost the entire worldocean, while the northern and southern subspecies can often be found in cold waters, and the dwarfish (a very conventional name, it is not much inferior in size and weight to its counterparts) - in warmer ones.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the number of blue whalesaccording to various data, about 200-300 thousand, in consequence, due to the massive extermination of the animal was reduced many times. In the 60s of the 20th century hunting for this species was completely banned. Now, again, there is no consensus on the number of blue whales living in the world's oceans. According to various sources, they number from 1.5 to 15 thousand.
