[Ring announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Champions Arena, where two teams will
compete for the title of the biggest creature on the planet.
In the blue corner are the oldest inhabitants of our planet - dinosaurs, in the red corner
are modern animals.
And let the victory go to the largest!
[Play by Play guy] The first round begins with a duel between two herbivorous creatures.
The largest land animal of our time enters the ring - the African elephant!
Its weight is 6-12 tons.
It weighs more than the anchor of a cruise ship and is 5 times heavier than the tallest
animal on the planet - a giraffe.
But still the elephant loses a lot to Argentinosaurus - the largest herbivorous dinosaur in the
world.
With a length of over 121 feet and tipping the scales at 90 tons, this giant will cover
just over half of the baseball field and weighs like 3 subway cars.
1-0 in favor of the prehistoric period.
Second round!
The battle between predators.
The largest modern land predator is the polar bear.
It is believed that on Earth, the polar bear has no enemies among animals.
And it figures: the largest recorded weight of this animal reached 1 ton.
This is about the weight of a car.
But even with such dimensions, the polar bear loses to Spinosaurus.
This creature is considered the largest land predator that ever existed on the planet.
Its length reached 49 feet, approximately 2 London red buses.
And it weighs 7 times more than our polar bear.
2-0 in favor of the dinosaurs!
But no matter how dangerous and huge land animals are, in fact, they’re babies compared
to those creatures that live in the seas and oceans.
Third round!
Let's start with just 8 feet.
That would be about four people…No!
This is the length of a big artificial Christmas tree.
It would seem not so much, if it didn’t belong to the largest arthropod insect on
the planet - a sea scorpion.
About 460 million years ago, these huge creatures resembling large space bugs inhabited shallow
waters and terrified all small marine mammals.
These predators are believed to have been distant relatives of all scorpions.
Of modern insects, no one will compete with this creature (and I'm extremely happy about
that ). Giant weta, a beetle resembling a cricket slightly smaller than a person’s
palm, won't go into a duel, knowing in advance that it has no chance against a sea scorpion.
3-0.
And again, prehistoric animals win.
Fourth round!
Sea predators.
The largest marine predator ever is considered Shastasaurus.
It lived about 235 million years ago and reached a length of 65.5 feet - it could easily cover
the entire bowling alley with itself, and it weighed 20 tons - almost like the weight
of a modern superjet.
Still, this ancient dinosaur loses in size to the largest marine modern animal - the
sperm whale.
It weighs like a herd of 50 cows, and almost three times as much as Shastasaurus, while
being of a similar length.
3-1!
Modern animals still lose by a wide margin.
Fifth round!
Now, from the depths of the ocean we are soaring into the sky.
The largest flying bird to date is an albatross.
Its wingspan is 11 feet - almost like the length of the Volkswagen Beetle.
But, unfortunately, the albatross easily loses to its distant ancestor - the bird Argentavis,
who lived 5-8 million years ago.
Its wingspan is almost 20 feet and... it's almost like TWO Volkswagen Beetles!
Albatross, I'm sorry, but there is no chance of victory.
4-1 in favor of the prehistoric animals!
It seems the living animals don't have a single chance in this championship but wait... right
now, the largest creature that ever existed on Earth appears on the ring.
Its size is comparable to a 9-story building.
And just the tongue of this creature weighs like a female African elephant!
And this is not some ancient dinosaur, but ours, a modern marine inhabitant!
The champion for the title of the largest animal on Earth is a blue whale!
All hail the king!
But can land animals reach the same size as dinosaurs?
Is it possible that in the future, for some reason, mammals will become as large as, for
example, Godzilla or Kraken?
Even if creatures of such sizes suddenly appeared, then, believe me, it certainly would not destroy
cities, as shown in many films.
I’ll explain why in a couple of minutes, but before that I’ll talk about marine giants.
Unlike land, the ocean has a much greater chance of a huge creature appearing.
There are several theories in this regard: lower temperature in the water slows down
metabolism.
And the slower the metabolism, the more it accumulates.
Theoretically, if any marine life is given a safe zone and an endless supply of food,
then it can grow to an enormous size.
The whale is proof of this.
However, everyone knows about whales, but what about real sea monsters?
–Release the Kraken!
Almost all seafarers have been scaring each other with stories about Kraken since ancient
times, but the worst thing in these tales is that they’re absolutely true.
Around the world, since the 17th century, many Kraken sightings have been recorded.
Modern scientists have given them a more scientific name - architeuthis.
Information about these creatures is not limited to records of past centuries, though.
For example, in 2007, a 29-foot squid was caught in the Antarctic waters (about the
width of a single letter from the Hollywood inscription in California) and weighing half
a ton, which is slightly more than a zebra.
You can easily find photos of this monster on the Internet.
But even this is far from the biggest Kraken.
In the Bermuda region, at the bottom of the ocean, hide squids that prey on whales and
sperm whales – two of the largest creatures on Earth.
Kraken from the Bermuda Depths reach 164 feet!
The same length of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris!
No wonder so many ships disappear in the Bermuda Triangle!
And since the known ocean is only 5 percent of it all, it is quite possible that something
truly huge and terrible is living in its depths.
Let’s keep as far as possible from these places and crawl to the land.
As I said, if the organism is given a safe area and environment with unlimited food,
then in the process of evolution a real Godzilla may appear.
But this doesn't work on the ground because all animals have a skeleton.
The strength of bones and joints is limited.
Even the bones of the largest dinosaurs weren’t really strong.
Due to gravity, it was difficult for them to move around, they were slow, and this is
not very good when there are a lot of predators around.
Such huge dimensions didn't help, but rather prevented the dinosaurs from surviving.
But the skeleton is not the only problem if you are a giant.
A huge load on the heart and high blood pressure is another thing.
Recently, scientists found that along with the weight of the dinosaur, its body temperature
increased.
So, for example, a 40-ton dinosaur’s temperature reached 118°F. And this is almost the limit
for the comfortable existence of a living organism.
So, if Godzilla had ever crawled out of the depths of the ocean, believe me, it wouldn't
have gone to ruin the city, it would have simply been too lazy to do it.
Instead, it would’ve found itself some uninhabited island and sunbathed there for the rest of
its life, going hunting from time to time.
But you know, some creatures, hypothetically, can eventually turn into huge titans!
And you won’t like them, because I'm talking about insects.
Like I said, the bones inside animals can't withstand enormous weight, but the body structure
of almost all insects is completely different.
Outwardly, they are covered with a skeleton, while soft tissues are hidden inside.
Some insects are able to shed their exoskeleton when their soft body becomes larger.
And then, on a new large body, a new, stronger skeleton is already growing.
In theory, such an upgrade can happen many times until a bug becomes the size of an airplane.
But fortunately, this is impossible, because the endless growth of insects is hindered
by their own habitat full of dangers and harsh environmental conditions.
No offense to bugs, but I hope that will continue this way.
And speaking about the largest living creatures on the planet, I can't but mention the tallest
tree in the world.
This is Hyperion — a Sequoia sempervirens.
Its height reaches 379 feet!
It is 74 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty and about the same height as a 38-story building!
You can say with confidence that King-Kong could easily climb such a tree.
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