Blue whale
Up to 30 m and 150+ tonnes
The largest animal known to have ever existed — heavier than the biggest dinosaurs. Its heart alone is the size of a small car and its tongue can weigh as much as an elephant.
Full blue whale guide →HideShark list
The biggest animals in the world
These are the giants — the animals that hold size records in their part of the tree of life. The list is ordered roughly by overall mass, and each entry notes exactly which record it holds.
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2 Whale shark
The biggest fish — up to ~18–20 m
A gentle, spotted filter feeder and the largest fish alive by a wide margin. Despite the size it eats plankton and is completely harmless to swimmers.
Full whale shark guide → -
3 African elephant
The biggest land animal — up to 7 tonnes
The largest animal that walks on land, with a 40,000-muscle trunk and the longest pregnancy of any mammal at 22 months.
Full african elephant guide → -
4 Orca
The biggest dolphin — up to 8 m
The largest member of the dolphin family and the ocean’s apex predator, hunting in coordinated pods that even kill great white sharks.
Full orca guide → -
5 Giraffe
The tallest animal — up to 5.7 m
Not the heaviest, but the tallest land animal, with a heart built to pump blood two metres straight up to the brain.
Full giraffe guide → -
6 Saltwater crocodile
The biggest reptile — 5.5 m+
The largest living reptile and the animal with the strongest bite force ever measured. Large males cross open ocean between islands.
Full saltwater crocodile guide → -
7 Great white shark
The biggest predatory fish — up to 6 m
The largest hunting fish in the sea, and partly warm-blooded, which lets it chase seals in cold water at up to 40 km/h.
Full great white shark guide → -
8 Hippopotamus
Third-heaviest land animal — up to 3 tonnes
After the elephant and rhino, the hippo is the largest animal on land, and one of the most dangerous in Africa.
Full hippopotamus guide → -
9 Polar bear
The biggest land carnivore — up to 600+ kg
The largest bear and the largest predator that spends its life on land and ice, built entirely around hunting seals.
Full polar bear guide → -
10 Ostrich
The biggest bird — up to 2.7 m and 150 kg
Far too heavy to fly, the ostrich is instead the fastest bird on land, sprinting at 70 km/h, and it lays the largest egg of any living bird.
Full ostrich guide → -
11 Andean condor
The largest flying land bird — 3.3 m wingspan
The greatest wing area of any bird on land, and one of the heaviest birds still capable of flight at up to 15 kg. It stays airborne for hours on mountain updrafts, flapping barely 1% of the time.
Full andean condor guide → -
12 Komodo dragon
The biggest lizard — up to 3 m and 90 kg
A venomous, 90 kg monitor lizard found on just five Indonesian islands, able to bring down water buffalo. The heaviest and bulkiest lizard alive.
Full komodo dragon guide → -
13 Asian water monitor
The longest lizard — commonly rivals or beats the Komodo
Second only to the Komodo dragon among lizards, and on average often longer (though far lighter). A large male can reach 3 m, much of it a flattened swimming tail. It thrives in cities across South and Southeast Asia.
Full asian water monitor guide → -
14 Perentie
Australia's largest lizard — over 2.5 m
The biggest of the Australian monitors and generally ranked the fourth-largest lizard in the world. It rears up on its hind legs and tail to scan the desert, and can sprint on two legs after snakes, rabbits, and young kangaroos.
Full perentie guide → -
15 Reticulated python
The longest snake — verified to 6.95 m
The longest snake in the world, a non-venomous constrictor that swims between islands and lives close to people across Southeast Asia.
Full reticulated python guide → -
16 Green anaconda
The heaviest snake — 100+ kg
Shorter than the reticulated python but roughly twice the weight, this South American constrictor ambushes capybara and caiman from the water.
Full green anaconda guide → -
17 Bushmaster
The longest viper — up to 3.6 m
The longest pit viper in the world and the longest venomous snake in the Americas, a heavy-bodied rainforest ambusher with long fangs and, unusually for a viper, eggs it stays to guard.
Full bushmaster guide → -
18 Goliath birdeater
The heaviest spider — up to 175 g
A rainforest tarantula the size of a dinner plate, with 2-centimetre fangs and a cloud of barbed defensive hairs it kicks at attackers.
Full goliath birdeater guide → -
19 Titan beetle
The longest beetle — body to ~16.7 cm
The longest beetle by body, from the deep Amazon. Its adults never feed — they live a few weeks to mate — and its jaws can reportedly snap a pencil. No confirmed larva has ever been found.
Full titan beetle guide → -
20 Giant oarfish
The longest bony fish — verified to 8 m
A silver ribbon of a deep-sea fish, only a few centimetres thick but up to eight metres long, with a red fin running its whole length. Rare strandings inspired sea-serpent legends.
Full giant oarfish guide → -
21 Basking shark
The second-largest fish — up to ~12 m
A plankton-straining giant that swims with its metre-wide mouth open, filtering around 2,000 tonnes of water an hour, and sometimes breaches clear of the surface.
Full basking shark guide → -
22 Japanese spider crab
The widest arthropod — 3.7 m leg span
The largest crab by reach: its spindly legs span nearly four metres claw to claw, though the body is only about 40 cm across. It scavenges the deep seabed off Japan and may live a century.
Full japanese spider crab guide → -
23 Sperm whale
The largest toothed predator — males to 18 m
No animal with teeth is bigger, and none has a larger brain. A male sperm whale can reach 18 metres and 57 tonnes, and it dives two kilometres down to hunt giant squid in the dark.
Full sperm whale guide → -
24 Giant Pacific octopus
The largest octopus — up to ~9 m across
The biggest of the octopuses, with an arm span that can approach nine metres and a weight of 50 kg or more — yet, being boneless, it can pour its whole body through a hole a few centimetres wide.
Full giant pacific octopus guide → -
25 Giant clam
The largest bivalve — over 1.3 m and 200 kg
The heavyweight of the shellfish world, cemented to a coral reef for a century or more, feeding itself mostly on sugars from algae it farms in its own electric-blue flesh.
Full giant clam guide → -
26 Chinese giant salamander
The largest amphibian — up to 1.8 m
The biggest living amphibian, a metre-plus of flat-headed predator from cold Chinese mountain streams, and a survivor of a lineage roughly 170 million years old. Farming and hunting have nearly emptied the wild.
Full chinese giant salamander guide → -
27 Japanese giant salamander
The second-largest amphibian — up to 1.5 m
A living fossil of cold Japanese mountain rivers, second in size only to its Chinese cousin. It breathes through its wrinkled skin and can live 50–70 years.
Full japanese giant salamander guide → -
28 Giant huntsman spider
The widest spider — ~30 cm leg span
The largest spider by reach, known only from caves in Laos. Its body is under 5 cm; the size is all in the long, sideways-angled legs. The bulkier goliath birdeater is heavier.
Full giant huntsman spider guide → -
29 Lion's mane jellyfish
The largest jellyfish — bell to ~2 m, tentacles tens of metres
In the cold far north the bell can span two metres and the hundreds of fine tentacles trail for tens of metres — one 1870 specimen was recorded at 37 m, which by total length would out-stretch a blue whale.
Full lion's mane jellyfish guide → -
30 Arapaima
Among the largest freshwater fish — up to ~3 m
An armour-scaled Amazon giant that breathes air with a lung and can reach three metres and 200 kg, rivalling the Mekong giant catfish for the title of largest fish that lives only in fresh water.
Full arapaima guide → -
31 Giant isopod
The largest isopod — up to ~50 cm
A deep-sea woodlouse relative the size of a house cat, an example of "deep-sea gigantism." It scavenges carcasses on the ocean floor and can survive years between meals.
Full giant isopod guide → -
32 Colossal squid
The heaviest invertebrate — up to ~500 kg
Shorter than the giant squid but far bulkier, this Antarctic deep-sea squid is the largest invertebrate by mass, with dinner-plate eyes — the biggest of any animal — and rotating hooks on its arms.
Full colossal squid guide → -
33 Beluga sturgeon
The largest freshwater/anadromous fish — historically 7 m
An armour-scaled sturgeon of the Caspian and Black Seas that runs up rivers to spawn. Old records reach 7 metres and over a tonne; one 1827 Volga fish of 1,571 kg may be the heaviest bony fish ever recorded.
Full beluga sturgeon guide → -
34 Giant freshwater stingray
The largest strictly freshwater fish — 300 kg record
A disc more than 2 metres across on a whip tail nearly 5 metres long. A 300 kg female tagged and released in the Cambodian Mekong in 2022 is the largest freshwater fish ever documented.
Full giant freshwater stingray guide → -
35 Giant weta
The heaviest insect — one female weighed ~71 g
A flightless New Zealand cricket relative that grew hand-sized on predator-free islands. A single egg-laden Little Barrier giant weta female, at about 71 grams, is the heaviest insect ever reliably weighed — more than a sparrow.
Full giant weta guide → -
36 Bootlace worm
Possibly the longest animal — a specimen recorded at ~55 m
A thin ribbon worm of northern European shores, only a few millimetres wide. A storm-cast individual measured at St Andrews in 1864 was recorded at roughly 55 metres, longer than a blue whale, though the elastic body makes such measurements uncertain. Even ordinary ones reach 5 to 15 metres.
Full bootlace worm guide → -
37 Elephant bird
The largest bird that ever lived — up to ~700 kg, and the biggest egg of any animal
A flightless giant of Madagascar, around 3 m tall and, on the heaviest estimates, approaching a tonne, which makes it the heaviest bird known. Its eggs held about 10 litres, the largest single egg in the history of life. It was gone by roughly 1,000 years ago, and its closest living relative is the chicken-sized kiwi.
Full elephant bird guide →
The Biggest Animals in the World: common questions
What is the biggest animal in the world?
The blue whale. At up to 30 metres long and over 150 tonnes it is the largest animal known to have ever lived, bigger than any dinosaur. The African elephant is the largest land animal, and the whale shark is the largest fish.
What is the biggest land animal?
The African elephant, at up to about 7 tonnes and 4 metres tall at the shoulder. The giraffe is taller — up to 5.7 metres — but much lighter.
Is the blue whale bigger than any dinosaur?
Yes. The blue whale outweighs even the largest known long-necked sauropod dinosaurs. Some dinosaurs may have been longer, but none came close to the blue whale’s mass.
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