From a horrifyingly huge giraffe monster to the largest carnivore on Earth right
now – and you won’t believe what it is! Here are 10 giant animals you didn’t know existed.
10: Mysterious Giant Pythons In 2019, when forest fires ravaged across
Indonesia, something strange was discovered in the aftermath. The bodies of some of the longest
and fattest snakes ever seen were found burnt to a crisp by local residents who were battling
the raging fires. People weren't the only ones in turmoil because of the thick smoke and hot flames.
Animals in the forest also burned – and with the forest going up in a blazing inferno,
some animals had no escape. These enormous snakes were literally burned alive!
And while that's obviously quite tragic, what's truly shocking is just how huge the snakes were.
It's as if a massive group of gigantic snakes had been living in the forest undetected.
Most experts agree that the burned snakes belonged to the python family,
probably Burmese pythons. They were estimated at being over 30 feet(9m) in length. That is unheard
of for any living snake today. Even the green anaconda almost never grows to be 30 feet(9m).
The biggest of all the charred corpses allegedly measured an incredible 32 feet(10m) in length.
However, because the animals were already dead, they don't qualify to break any official records.
9: Giant Freshwater Stingray The giant freshwater stingray is about half
the size of a school bus. This thing is absolutely gargantuan! It weighs over half a ton, and it is
so strong that it's been known to pull boats underwater! It can grow to be over 15 feet(4.5m)
in length. Perhaps the most shocking thing about the giant freshwater stingray is that it was first
discovered just a couple of years ago in 2004. It wasn't confirmed as a new species until 2006 with
help from the World Wildlife Foundation and the Smithsonian Institute. The stingray is wide and
flat with a whip for a tail, and experts say it hasn't changed a single bit in millions of years.
But how could such a beastly creature live for so long without being identified? The truth of
the matter is that giant freshwater rays live in the muck at the bottom of rivers and estuaries.
They bury themselves in the slime on the bottom where they are essentially invisible to humans.
They then hunt using special sensors on their body that can detect other animals’ electrical fields.
In other words, they hunt almost with a sixth sense. These things
never need to leave the bottom of the river. But if you step on one,
it will most likely stab you with its barb and inject you full of deadly poison. Watch your step!
8: Giant Amazon Ant The giant Amazon ant is the biggest ant in the
entire world. It lives throughout the Amazon and the Andes, from Colombia all the way to Paraguay.
It can grow to be almost 2 inches(5cm) in length, longer than some of your pinky fingers! It’s been
compared in size to the modern hummingbird. This doesn't sound very big, but it's huge in the world
of ants. One of the most fascinating things about the giant Amazon ant is that it has evolved beyond
morphologically distinct queens. They still have an alpha female that rules the ant kingdom, it’s
just a position earned in a slightly different way than being born into it. A young female becomes
alpha, her ovaries swell, and she turns into the queen. However, she’s referred to as the
alpha female instead of queen, and if she dies, another lowly worker ant can then take her place.
Male ants have wings and the female ants don't. Wingless females wait around the entrance of the
nest and only mate with visiting males. When the mating is finished, the female will then chew
through the male ant’s stomach to get away from him, leaving his ripped off genitalia inside of
her. This acts as a type of plug to keep other male ants from trying to mate with her again.
What do you think of the giant amazon ant’s mating methods? Let
me know in the comments below and if you’re liking this video be sure
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7: Chilli the Cow Chilli the cow is an absolute colossus.
He lives at the Ferne Animal Sanctuary in England where he spends his days eating fresh grass and
doing a whole lot of nothing. What a life! But he stands 6 feet and 6 inches(2m) tall,
making him a giant among bovines! And no, he’s not on steroids! He just so happens to be 18
inches(45cm) taller than a regular cow, and he probably weighs about 2750 pounds(1247kg).
If this sanctuary were to butcher Chilli up for his meat, he could make around 14,000 Big Macs!
Chilli could essentially feed 14,000 people! Where did such a beast of a cow come from,
you ask? When he was only six days old, he was dropped outside the sanctuary like an abandoned
dumpster baby. He was left with four other cows and has been looked over by the sanctuary ever
since. His brothers and sisters grew to be completely normal sized while Chilli kept
growing until he became a variable giant cow. Currently, a cow named Blossom is the world's
tallest cow reaching 6 feet 4 inches(1.9m), but the Guinness Book of Records is preparing
to formally measure Chili, at which point he may surpass Blossom and become the largest cow alive!
6: Giant Giraffe Monster Some of the biggest and most
unbelievable animals have already gone extinct. Take the giant giraffe monster for example.
This extinct giraffid lived in the Himalayan foothills and was larger than an African elephant!
It is survived today by the giraffe and the okapi. Some scientists say it might be the
largest mammal that ever walked the Earth. The name of this monster is the Sivatherium
giganteum. It’s not a very exciting name, but that’s what it is called all the same.
The animal originated during the Late Miocene period in Africa and lived through the last ice
age, only going extinct about 8000 years ago. This means that some of our human ancestors
undoubtedly lived with the giant giraffe and maybe even hunted it! Skeletons of the creature
have been found dating back 1 million years. It stood about 7.2 feet(2.1m) at the shoulder – but
seeing as it is a monster giraffe, its head was easily 10 feet(3m) off the ground. It also
weighed over 1000 pounds(455kg). Can you imagine if we still had these giant giraffes today?!
5: Cinereous Vulture The cinereous vulture is one of the biggest
scavengers in the world. This is not a bird you want to fight for scraps. It has an extremely
strong hooked beak designed specifically for tearing raw chunks of meat from carcasses. Yikes!
This is a dangerous animal that could easily rip your face off! But they won’t make a mess
of themselves while doing so because like other vultures they lack feathers on the tops of their
heads. While they may seem gross and terrifying, they actually help clean up the environment!
They are the clean up crew of the planet! They live primarily in regions throughout southern
and eastern Europe, the Middle East, central Asia, and into Mongolia and southern China.
Because of the vulture’s long wings measuring between 39 and 43 inches(100-110cm),
giving it a wingspan of up to 9.5 feet(2.8m), it has the exceptional ability to soar incredibly
high in the air. It also doesn’t need to flap its wings very often because they're so huge!
It simply glides around all day searching for dead animals. According to the Denver Zoo, cinereous
vultures have been spotted by hikers on Mount Everest at altitudes of over 23,000 feet(7010m).
That’s 4 miles(6.4km) high! Being up that high enables them to spot potential meals very easily!
Good thing they like animals that are already dead or you and I - and our pets might be in trouble!
4: The Titan Beetle The titan beetle is the biggest beetle in
the entire world. It's huge and surprisingly not that creepy – unless of course you’re terrified of
beetles! It can grow to be almost 7 inches(17cm), bigger than most people’s palms. It’s also quite
prolific. You can find titan beetles throughout all the tropical rainforests of South America,
especially in places like Brazil and Colombia. But despite its huge size and armor plating,
the titan beetle isn't all that dangerous. It can hiss loudly to scare off predators, and it has
sharp spines on its body and jaws so powerful they can snap a pencil in half, but luckily for us,
it isn’t that aggressive. You're more likely to die from a mosquito than from a titan beetle.
What does the biggest beetle in the world eat? How about nothing at all! Titan beetle larvae feast on
dead wood underground! They turn into adults and spend just a few weeks alive without ever eating.
Scientists don’t fully understand why. It's believed that adult titan beetles live all
their lives off the calories consumed and stored when they're in their larval form. I wish I could!
3: Giant Sea Cow There was once a giant cow swimming
through the Pacific Ocean. The cow was about 30 feet(9m)long and weighed over 10 tons(20,000lbs).
It was a phenomenal swimmer and spent the majority of its time just like any other cow, taking it
easy and grazing on grass. This grass just so happened to be underwater. Unfortunately, the
Steller’s sea cow has been extinct for the last 250 years. A lot of people don't realize that such
a megalithic monster even existed! And not all that long ago! Scientists are still struggling to
find out all they can about the ancient sea cows. Of course, these underwater bovines
were of absolutely no relation to farm cows. They didn't look the same, nor were they harvested for
milk or meat. There are even sea cows still alive today, such as the dugong that lives
in Southeast Asia. If you've ever seen a dugong, you have a rough idea of what the Steller’s sea
cow once looked like, except that it was over three times as large! Holy sea cow!
According to the BBC, the first sighting of a Steller’s sea cow was in 1741 during
a sailing expedition in the Bering Sea. The ship was marooned and the sailors survived
by hunting down a giant sea cow and eating it. At the time, they estimated about 1500
living around the island. But unfortunately, that number has now been reduced to zero. The
last one was killed in 1768, less than 30 years after the island and the species was discovered.
2: The Walking Croc Believe it or not, there used to be terrestrial
crocodiles! What this means is a crocodile with longer legs, used well for running on land once
existed! If you thought modern crocodiles are deadly, imagine one with big, muscular legs, about
as tall as a person, and more formidable than any big cat alive today. To be totally honest,
you would have better chances fighting a pride of lions than a single terrestrial crocodile.
One of the last terrestrial crocs to live on our planet was the quinkana.
It only went extinct about 40,000 years ago, which is nothing in the cosmic scope of things.
It’s believed that the quinkana went extinct around the same time that humans arrived in
Australia. Its vanishing also coincides with many other large mammals disappearing into thin
air on the Australian continent. This has made researchers truly consider just how efficient
early humans were at wiping out entire species. There are two main things about the quinkana that
make it truly impressive. First, it lived entirely on land. It didn't use water for
hunting – so, no deathrolls like our modern crocodiles and alligators today. Secondly,
it had teeth like knives with serrated edges that worked to rip open the soft bodies of mammals.
A single bite would result in imminent death, whether you bled out immediately or limped away
somewhere and bled out slowly. The largest of the quinkana could grow to be over 18 feet(5.4m) long!
1: Southern Elephant Seal The southern elephant seal,
something that looks like a melted puppy dog stuffed into a soggy hotdog,
is actually the largest carnivore in the world. A carnivoran is just a hairy carnivore. The
elephant seal, though it may not look that big, is actually six times larger than a polar bear!
The southern elephant seal is also twice as large as the northern elephant seal – so yes,
there is a huge difference when talking about elephant seals from the north and from the south.
In fact, animals are classified differently, normally for very good reasons.
But just how huge does this oddly adorable and equally repulsive carnivore get? The males can
grow to be around 20 feet(6m) long, weighing up to 8000 pounds(3640kg). Females are smaller, with the
largest and most powerful male seals developing harems of many females, becoming the only male
allowed to mate in the whole region! Basically, male southern elephant seals are kind of dirtbags.
Thanks for watching! Which of these terrifying monsters would you be most scared to meet?
Let me know in the comments and be sure to hit the subscribe button and
come back soon for another awesome video! See you next time! Bye! :)