Top 10 longest animals in the world

The animal world is beautiful in its diversity. In nature, there are specimens the size of one cell, as well as those whose dimensions inspire real awe.

Giant animals live on land, in the ocean, and even in the bodies of other animals on our planet. They are unlike each other, and each of them is amazing and mysterious, like any perfect creation of nature.

Introducing the top 10 longest animals in the world.

10 Anaconda – 5,2 m

It is not in vain that this huge reptile is called a giant. This snake has a very intimidating appearance, standing out among most of its relatives in the first place by its huge dimensions.

The biggest anaconda reaches a length of about 5,2 meters with a body weight of 97,5 kg.

Interestingly, in 1944, geologists looking for an oil field in the tropical forests of Colombia accidentally found an anaconda, whose body size reached 11 m and 43 cm. capture a snake of such large dimensions.

Once upon a time, the United States Zoological Society even promised a reward in the form of a tidy sum to those who find an anaconda whose body length exceeds 12 m.

9. Giraffe – 5,8 m

Giraffe – a very recognizable animal from the order of artiodactyls and the tallest land mammal in the world, and in terms of body weight it ranks 4th, behind the elephant, hippopotamus and rhinoceros.

The body size of large males can reach 5,8 meters, and females 5,1 meters.

8. Nematode Placentonema gigantissima – 8,5 m

Nematode Placentonema gigantissima – This is a type of giant round helminths. Female individuals reach a length of up to 8,5 meters. More often they parasitize in the intestines of large mammals, such as sperm whales.

This type of worm is very often found in the placenta of female sperm whales. This type of parasite was first found in the region of the Kuril Islands and described in detail in 1951 by N. M. Gubanov.

Male nematodes are somewhat inferior in length to females – 2,04-3,75 meters. The width of the females reaches 15-25 mm (the anus is located about 1 m from the end of the body).

Mature eggs, inside which there is a formed larva, have a size of 0,03-0,049 mm.

7. Antarctic giant squid – 10 m

This is one of the most common and largest species of squid that live in the Antarctic latitudes. The maximum length of this animal is at least 10 meters, and sometimes even 13-14 meters.

Quite an interesting feature Antarctic giant squid is the presence in their body of a special chemical compound – ammonium chloride, which is able to reduce the specific gravity of the body and give the squid neutral buoyancy.

This feature distinguishes them from small squids with negative buoyancy, which are forced to constantly use the too energy-consuming biological algorithm of the jet stream emanating from the funnel because of this.

6. Giant shark – 12 m

The largest body size recorded by scientists giant shark is 12 meters. The mass of a giant shark can reach 4 tons.

Representatives of this species with a body size of less than three meters in nature are quite rare. The smallest recorded basking shark measured 1,7m in length.

5. Whale shark – 18 m

Whale shark – a large representative of the Rincodont family. It is the largest known species of sharks and living fish in our time. The largest individual known to researchers reached about 18 meters.

The whale shark can be seen in the warm zones of tropical latitudes throughout the surface of the oceans. In addition, in some regions of its range, this shark has a larger population than in others.

Whale sharks often move in small scattered communities, much less often alone. Sometimes, at points where there is a large amount of food, they can form numerous clusters of hundreds of individuals.

Whale sharks cover quite large distances in the process of migration, pursuing numerous groups of plankton. One way or another, the way of life of this species of waterfowl, the features of its behavioral reactions and reproduction to this day remain a poorly studied area for zoologists, despite the fact that recently, through the use of the latest technologies, for example, observations using satellites, have been obtained very important data about their movements.

4. sperm whale – 25 m

Sperm whale – This is one of the largest predators on Earth. In the oral cavity, these animals have many very sharp teeth. The jaw of these animals can exceed 5 m. The sperm whales themselves can have a body length of up to 20-25 meters. Their mass exceeds several tons.

By the way, in prehistoric times, sperm whales were even larger, but in the course of evolution, these predators became much smaller. The sperm whale is listed in the Red Book of Russia.

3. Blue whale – 33 m

This animal is also known as blue minke. He is the largest whale, the largest mammal today. Its average length is approximately 33 meters, and its weight can exceed 150 tons.

Since the beginning of the last century, the population blue whale began to decline rapidly due to the barbaric fishing industry. First of all, blue whale hunters were interested in the incredible size of this mammal itself – much more useful raw materials could be obtained from one such whale than from other representatives of cetaceans.

Because of this, by the 60s, the blue whale was on the verge of almost complete extermination – then about 5000 individuals remained alive.

Now, despite the active measures taken to protect this rare animal, the blue whale is still considered a very rare inhabitant of the deep sea – the total number of individuals does not exceed 10. Therefore, in order to support its population, it is necessary to carry out more and more new measures aimed at its protection.

2. Medusa “lion’s mane” – 37 m

The largest hairy jellyfish known to science, which is called the “lion’s mane”, was washed ashore in Massachusetts Bay in 1870. The size of her body was 230 centimeters, and the length of the tentacles was 37 meters, which exceeds the size of the body of blue whales.

This jellyfish is the largest species of jellyfish, which are classified as cnidarian and scyphoid. It got its original name thanks to the many tangled tentacles that outwardly have an expressive resemblance to a lion’s mane.

Lion’s mane jellyfish – a fairly long creature and many inhabitants of the deep sea, for example, shrimp and plankton, can live in its hairy part, which provides themselves with protection from external threats and regular food.

Interestinglythat Arthur Conan Doyle himself dedicated one of his works about the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes to this animal.

1. Tapeworm – 55 m

This huge parasite worm lives in the intestines of gray whales and sperm whales. Other name tapeworms – split. One such representative of the fauna, extracted from the intestines of a sperm whale, had a body size of 30 meters, that is, it was longer than its own owner.

The longest representative of this species is the so-called lineus longissimus. Thrown by a storm in 1864 to the coast of Scotland, the worm extended its body to a distance of 55 meters, while it had a diameter of 1 cm.