From the biggest king cobra ever discovered living in a sewer to the giant marine animal
that can survive for over 2000 years!
Here are 10 of the biggest animals that ever lived!
10: The Sewer Cobra The king cobra is one of the biggest and most
venomous snakes in the entire world.
They have venom so potent that they can kill a person within just 30 minutes of biting
them.
Not only that, but the venom delivered by the fangs of a king cobra is so toxic, it
has the strength to kill at least 20 men.
A king cobra was recently pulled out of a sewer in southern Thailand, and it was so
big, it’s hard to believe it’s even real.
King cobras can be found throughout many parts of India and Southeast Asia, and in Thailand,
and they can be pretty common in rural areas.
This particular giant was found slithering through the open sewer near a small residential
district.
Animal rescue workers had to be called in to take the cobra away and release it somewhere
in the wild, but they hadn’t expected the cobra to be almost 15 feet(4.5m) long!
It turned out to be the largest cobra the team had ever tried to wrangle, and one of
the biggest cobras ever captured by human hands.
To give you an idea of how big a king cobra is on average, they’re typically around
10 feet(3m) long.
It's not unusual for them to grow 13 feet(3.9m), but anything longer than that is considered
a giant.
The maximum length is 18 feet(5.4m), but this rarely occurs.
In the case of the Thai super serpent, the residential district it was found in had apparently
been built over top of a once pristine jungle, and that jungle had been full of cobras.
After development, many of the remaining snakes stuck around to live in the sewers.
9: The Biggest Eel There could be a giant eel bigger than any
other eel in the world, and it could possibly be living in Loch Ness, Scotland.
I'm talking about the Loch Ness Monster.
According to the Archaeology News Network, the famous Nessie could actually be a giant
eel!
Thanks to a study done by Professor Neil Gemmel, a geneticist working with the University of
Otago in New Zealand, it turns out the sightings of Nessie that have been going on for the
last few centuries could be caused by a large creature living beneath the murky surface
of the loch.
However, there is no solid evidence that a monster from the prehistoric era is living
in the body of water, Loch Ness has been studied extensively and investigated for environmental
DNA.
Scientists have found no DNA belonging to a shark, a catfish, a sturgeon, or any kind
of prehistoric beast.
But here's what scientists did find.
With almost every sample taken from the loch, they discovered DNA from an eel.
Nobody knows what kind of eel, how big it could be, or even how long it's been alive.
Out of 250 samples of water taken from different parts of the loch, all at different depths,
eel DNA appeared in just about everyone.
It's clear there’s either one very large eel or even quite a few living in Loch Ness.
It would actually fit perfectly to the descriptions of the Loch Ness Monster: a slithery creature
with a long neck, around 13 feet(3.9m) in length.
It would make sense why witnesses always see the monster slithering along the surface of
the water like some kind of sea snake, and it would explain why the monster is so hard
to find.
If Nessie really is an eel, she would be living in darkness probably at the bottom of the
loch.
8: The Biggest Fox The biggest fox in British history was discovered,
captured, and then swiftly murdered.
Here's the story.
The fox was busted eating a rural family’s cat.
So, the family set out some traps, baited them with food, and waited.
But what the family didn’t expect was for the fox to be just about twice the normal
size of any other fox found in Britain.
The giant monster weighed about 26.5 pounds(12kg), which may not sound like much but is actually
quite significant for a little fox.
It was about 4 feet(1.2m) in length and as tall as a coyote.
For anyone who doesn't know the wild canine hierarchy, fox is at the bottom, coyote is
usually in the middle, and then wolf is on the top.
This fox somehow grew double its average size, sprouting its way up the food chain and becoming
a local apex predator.
Unfortunately for the giant fox, the family was still pretty upset that it ate their cat.
The guy who actually used the traps to catch the fox was a veterinarian, and so at least
he murdered the giant fox in the most humane way possible.
And by that, I mean he filled it full of drugs and made it go to sleep..
7: The Biggest Dinosaur in Japan On the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido,
paleontologists have unearthed the largest dinosaur skeleton ever found in the country.
The complete skeleton of an incredible dinosaur that dates back 72 million years was uncovered
from a marine deposit.
What kind of dinosaur was it, you ask?
It was a type of duck-billed dino.
These dinosaurs are also known as Hadrosuridae.
They were widely distributed herbivores during the Late Cretaceous, which ended with a familiar
asteroid 66 million years before today.
According to the research team from Hokkaido University, the dinosaur was 24 feet(7.3m)
long!
It was a literal monster.
There are actually two types of duck-billed dinosaurs, those with crests and those without.
This one didn’t have a crest, meaning it didn’t have the weird bone thing sticking
out the top of its head.
Skeletons of duck-billed dinosaurs have been found previously in Japan, but to date, this
is the biggest.
6: The Biggest Elephant One of the largest recorded land animals in
human history was a great African elephant shot to death in 2017.
His name was Satao II, named after a different giant elephant that was killed by poachers
in 2014.
This elephant was known as a “tusker” because his tusks were so big that they nearly
dragged across the ground.
The elephant was 50 years old and the last giant of its kind to walk our planet.
According to conservationists, he was killed in a poaching incident after being shot with
over 40 poison arrows.
He was found dead near the Kenyan wildlife refuge of Tsavo National Park – though evidently,
not much of a refuge.
The BBC says there are fewer than 30 African “tuskers” left in the wild today.
This means there are less than 30 African adult bulls with large ivory tusks.
The death of Satao II was terribly tragic, especially since locals who were familiar
with the elephant said he had a great personality.
He was approachable, easy to find, and was always up for saying hello.
Over the past 50 years, Satao II had survived droughts, other poaching attempts, and plenty
of hardships as the world changed.
In the end, the poaching attempt was all for nothing.
The poachers didn't even get away with his ivory tusks.
They were found by officers with the Kenyan Wildlife Service.
The gang of poachers was also captured and arrested, discovered with bows and poisoned
arrows and an AK-47 rifle.
To give you an idea of how huge Satao II was, one of his tusks weighed a whopping 113.5
pounds(51.4kg).
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5: The Ancient Giant Fish The largest extinct fish currently on record
is the Leedsichthys problematicus.
I know, it's not a very good name for a fish.
But it's the largest one ever recorded and it lived 165 million years ago in both Europe
and South America.
You won't believe how huge this ancient fish was.
To set up some examples so you can be even more shocked, this extinct fish was a type
of bony fish, which today make up 95% of all living fish species.
The heaviest bony fish alive right now is the ocean sunfish, which weighs 2.5 tons(5000lbs).
The fish from our prehistoric past weighed an outstanding 49 tons(98000lbs).
That makes it heavier than a whale shark, one of the biggest cartilaginous fish in the
world, which only weighs around 37.4 tons(74800lbs).
It was a giant and a fantastic predator.
Scientists believe the giant fish could move at speeds of up to 11 miles per hour(17.7kph).
That's pretty impressive considering the fastest fish today only goes about double that.
What scientists don't understand is why there are no giant bony fish living today.
The environment is perfect for them to thrive in, and yet throughout the last few millions
of years, they have continued shrinking, getting smaller and smaller.
4: Lolong the Crocodile The largest captive crocodile was named Lolong,
and he was formally declared the biggest in the world by Guinness World Records in 2012
before dying the year after.
His capture back in 2011 in the Philippines was amazing.
Lolong was initially blamed for the death of at least one person in the small town of
Bunawan, prompting a search that lasted for over three weeks and involved dozens of hunters.
When the huge and angry reptile was finally tracked down and captured, it was measured
at being 21 feet(6.4m) long, tipping the scales at an incredible 2370 pounds(1075kg).
Everyone was so impressed with the preposterous size of Lolong the crocodile that instead
of killing him, they put him on display at a local eco-tourism park.
But Lolong’s fame didn't last long.
She flipped on her back, bloated and sick, and died a few hours later.
This happened because apparently Lolong didn't like being stuck in a cage.
He stopped eating, he gradually got sicker, and the unseasonably cold weather in the Philippines
was the final nail in the coffin that put him out of commission.
It’s not clear what happened to his body, but he probably made one incredibly swanky
pair of crocodile boots.
3: The Common Ostrich The ostrich is the biggest bird in the world.
Ostriches are fascinating creatures with a rich evolutionary history.
The massive bird has three stomachs.
Pretty weird, but pretty cool too.
Ostriches are also able to run faster than any animal with two legs on the planet.
An ostrich can sprint at a blistering speed of 43 miles per hour(62kph).
This is because they have just two toes on each foot whereas other birds have four.
It's more like they have hooves, and with their powerful legs, they can really hoof
it!
These things run faster than a lot of cars can drive!
What’s weird about the ostrich is that it can’t use its wings to fly.
It’s a flightless bird.
The wings of an ostrich have a span of about 6 feet(1.8m) and are primarily used to impress
other ostriches.
They also work to conserve heat, and to let the ostrich change direction while running
- like a boat's rudder.
The coolest thing about the common ostrich is its eggs.
There is a whole social structure that revolves around the eggs.
First of all, a single ostrich egg weighs as much as 24 chicken eggs.
Secondly, every female ostrich can recognize her own eggs even when in a group with other
eggs.
When it comes time to lay the eggs, all the females in a group put their eggs in the same
basket – that of the dominant ostrich.
The dominant female then works with her favorite male to incubate the eggs for 45 days.
2: The Giant Barrel Sponge The giant barrel sponge is one of the weirdest
animals you've never heard of.
This bizarre creature lives in coral and rocky reefs – and yes, it looks like a rock.
At first glance, you might think this was some kind of clay bowl someone dropped into
the ocean after a pottery class.
But it's actually a living sponge found throughout the Caribbean.
It's also the biggest sponge ever found, measuring 6 feet(1.8m) across.
And other animals live in it too, like crabs, fish, shrimps, and other little critters.
But unlike most animals we talked about today, the giant barrel sponge isn't able to move.
It's stuck to the surface of the reef and stays there for its whole life.
How long is the life of a giant barrel sponge?
According to Oceana, the giant sponge can live for over 2000 years!
Because humans haven't really been keeping track of our marine friends that long, nobody
actually knows how old these things can get.
They date back 500 million years, making the sponge one of the oldest and most primal types
of animals on the planet.
They may be boring and immobile, but they’re old and by their own terms, gigantic!
1: The Biggest Anaconda When Colonel Percy Fawcett from Northern Ireland
went on an expedition into the Amazon jungle in 1906, he claimed to witness a giant anaconda,
a totally new breed of anaconda previously unknown to science.
He said the animal was absolutely massive, around 60 feet(18m) in length.
This seems preposterous, but that’s what the explorer said.
He’d been charged with mapping the Peruvian Amazon and had no reason to make up such a
crazy story.
And then just a few years later in 1925, Fawcett himself actually vanished in the jungle.
Many people believe he was eaten by the giant snake.
But was he really?
Is there actually a monster snake living in the Amazon jungle over 60 feet(18m) long?
The answer is probably not.
Even though there are rumors, even among the Amazonian tribes, of something called the
Yacumama, or the Black Boa – a beastly serpent so large it can eat a whole village – they’re
probably just rumor and legend.
The largest snake ever was a prehistoric monster called the Titanoboa, which only grew to be
around 40 feet(12m) maximum.
And it went extinct hundreds of thousands of years ago.
The chances of a 60 foot(18m) snake being around in the 20th century are pretty low.
Thanks for watching!
Which of these incredibly huge animals is your favorite?
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