Is There An Animal Bigger Than The Blue Whale?

[@ryanhau1073]

What if the Megalodon is actually a Tiny Shark that has cartoonishly large teeth

[@Acrow0000]

For Real, It could have been a big and short shark with big head like a big porbeagle shark instead of a great white-looking shark

[@Ikan_Barracuda]

@@ryanhau1073 except we have a complete preserved meg vertebrae which about 11.1m long. The shark itself is estimated at 16m long if the proportion is based on great white

[@matthewkuscienko4616]

I've always hated the "tiny shark with cartoonishly large teeth" meme that people like to put in comments about the megalodon, if only because it's completely and frankly stupidly unrealistic. We have seen the jaw size to this shark, so there's no way it could've been tiny. People may think it's funny, but it's really not when you take the time to think about it for even a few short seconds. It's kind of a similar thing to people who believe that the megalodon could somehow exist in the ocean somewhere: the way I see it, if that shark species was still alive today, we would more than likely have solid evidence of it's existence to prove it. As it stands, however, I think that it's little more than people believing what they want to believe without thinking about how probable it could be for that to realistically be the truth of the matter -- I feel this applies to both things I mentioned in my comment

[@ryanhau1073]

@@matthewkuscienko4616 hypothetically, if the Megalodon was tiny, could hide in the modern ocean more easily

[@mouth7137]

Like the Dunkleosteus

[@Peatingtune]

Researchers need to shift their attention to American Wal-Marts before concluding that no animal is larger than the blue whale.

[@johngr1747]

This would have been such a banger of a joke over a decade ago

[@I-like-Hugs-and-Fluffy-boys]

​​@@johngr1747 or is going to be a few decades after. Who knows how much evolution will change such an interesting spiece over the years!

[@AZAEL-_-]

Actually clever and made me giggle a Little, truly unexpected.

[@Duke_Of_Havoc]

​​@@johngr1747So you weren't fat a decade ago?

[@Reshi500]

@@johngr1747 Let me guess you're amercian and hurt over that joke?

[@glebeldionrayparcon1008]

Rex. Blue whale 🤝 Multiple attempted dethroning

[@loowick4074]

Rex is dethroning itself with each study

[@Unknown07-ic6kr]

​@@loowick4074fr like where the hell did "cope" come from?

[@Lwaww]

Wasn’t gigantozaur and spinozaur bigger than Rex?

[@airtonvilela9271]

@@Lwaww No, they're just slightly longer

[@Oscar_the_fascist_slayer]

​@@airtonvilela9271 I'm pretty sure the Spinosaurus is heavier than a T rex

[@GODEYE270115]

Tf were they feeding those Triassic reptiles 😭

[@TheVividen]

Entire planets, I suspect. Galactus is a shastasaurid.

[@maanking9923]

@@TheVividen Fr

[@deinocheirusgaming6920]

My bad, I thought it would be funny to give that little swimming lizard I found in the Early Triassic some Tren and Crack.

[@ShinjiIkari-yl8jw]

@@TheVividen bro they need to stop giving these guys steroids 💀

[@birdwatchingwithdrrajasaur4410]

Other triassic reptiles

[@obi-wankenobi5926]

Your mother.

[@Distix-uz8qr]

OBI WAN

[@ACHABOKUS]

Ohhhh

[@Orthosaur7532]

You damn really said it.

[@MAl-qm8oc]

I guess The comments always have the high ground

[@ACHABOKUS]

@@Orthosaur7532 i'm about it too , it was too rude dude

[@kalevipoeg6916]

Paleontologist here. I will start by addressing the elephant - or whale - in the room: the mass figures often thrown around for the blue whale itself. Let me ask you something: do you know WHERE those figures come from? People just sort of seem to accept them as gospel: "Blue whales are 200 tons", or "the largest ever blue whale was 210 tons and 35 m long". Let's address that, because this is a KEY part of this. Fact is, blue whales are awkward things to weigh. You can't just ask them to step on a scale, after all. Consider where, how and by WHOM this "information" is collected. The 210+ ton figure has been thrown around a LOT, but who has ever seen the actual weighing process of that individual? How were things calibrated? What method was used? Don't you find it a BIT odd that many whales very nearly as long as blue whales - which by the way tend to be fairly slender in build, as whales go - get tagged with weights closer to 30 to 60 tons? This, it turns out, is a BIG issue with the myth of blue whale sizes. So, what RELIABLY measured, DOCUMENTED lengths and weights ARE there for blue whales? It turns out, blue whales are SHOCKINGLY poorly understood. The mythical 200 ton weight, by the way? It's arrived at not by physical measurement of the animal but extrapolation from photographs and mounted skeletons, then employing volumetric mass estimates on that basis (Paul 2022). The PROBLEM inherent here is that there will always be significant uncertainty when it comes to this methodology - individual animals vary broadly even within the same species - robustness of build, depth and width of specific body segments, even differences in density. The EXACT dimensions of the mythical 200+ ton "biggest blue whale" are in fact not known - they're estimates, and they rely on more than a few assumptions. So what about the more RELIABLE methods? Well...turns out the LONGEST *reliably, laser-measured* individuals (employing drones with mounted lasers) are closer to 27 meters, or a bit under 90 feet - not the 110 ft / 33.5 meter length estimated for the "biggest one". The MAJORITY of blue whales - which is what is more important, because when talking about an animal you are really thinking about the TYPICAL representation of the species - not the exception - which were accurately measured and more or less adults fell between 22 and 25 meters (72 to 82 feet long) - and while actual mass is difficult in a live whale - or even a dead one - to accurately gage, best estimates for most of those adults puts them closer to the 80 to 120 ton range - not the monstrous 200+ tons often thrown around. Not even close. It is worth noting that there exists overlap here between the GREATEST sauropod dinosaur mass estimates (Argintinosaurus, for instance, may have possibly exceeded 80 tons - some previous estimates being in the 100 ton range) and the lower end for adult blue whales that are TYPICAL of the species. Worth mentioning too that volumetric analysis has a big flaw with whales: they expand when they open their gaping maws and take in vast amounts of water, krill, etc. When that's all expelled, their profile from side or bottom is quite a lot more slender. It's also the case that a whale's weight can vary by many tons depending on the season and available food supplies, with whales that have finiished calving often being far leaner and almost emaciated by the end of it. The mass of an individual whale can vary quite a lot in a short amount of time in the same individual. Expel everything that's not *whale* - seawater, undigested krill, etc - and the tonnage goes down sharply. So the reality is, the size of blue whales tends to be a bit overblown. They ARE undeniably massive animals. Obviously the biggest individual organisms on the planet today (though not even close to the biggest living things - trees and colonial organisms can far exceed them, as can fungus networks underlying forest floors) - but the biggest EVER is a bit of a bold claim to make. What, then, if anything, MIGHT have rivaled them? First, that depends on what you mean by "biggest". Shaq at 7'1" is generally going to be thought of as being BIGGER than 6'2" Eddie Hall - but Eddie outweighs Shaq despite Shaq visibly LOOKING larger. If you mean LENGTH, the blue whale doesn't hold a candle to the longest estimates for sauropods. In terms of height, if you sat them on the ground, the whale would lose out, too. If you mean HEAVIEST, that's far harder to say. The fact is that when it comes to extinct organisms with no modern proxies, the BEST we can do is look at the fossil record, come up with some reasonable builds for the living thing - muscle, skin, internal organs, fat, and so on - and estimate mass on that basis, which is actually VERY dodgy work when it comes down to it, ESPECIALLY since most sauropods - especially the really huge ones - are known from at best a few or even one VERY incomplete skeleton - even just a single or a few bones. That is a BIG leap to take, an it requires a lot - a LOT - of assumptions and using the (we hope) right proxies in related taxa we have more complete remains for to fill in the many, many blanks. Yet, dinosaurs were nothing if not ENORMOUSLY variable, even within the same species. There is a huge diversity of form in ceratopsids of the same species, for insance, or T. rex, or basically any dinosaur. And we're talking about extrapolating from an entirely different species - which requires a leap of faith and some educated guesswork. Take the legend of Maraapunisaurus (formerly Amphicoelias). Based on dubious and very fragile remains found in the 19th century and thererafter lost, it is known primarily from a single massive vertebra, itself incomplete. How tall that vertebra would be and its exact dimensions - and therefore the size of the living animal - depends a LOT on what the build of the animal was like and what its relatives were. Ken Carpenter more recently re-assessed the (sketches of) the bone, viewing it as a rebbachisaurid and on that basis scaling down the length considerably from the 190 feet once estimated (58 meters) down to perhaps 33 meters or around 100 feet - still longer than the norm for a blue whale but altering the build dramatically and therefore the mass of the animal. But, of course, this is based on a 150 year old sketch of one single bone, the placement within the skeleton is not even known, assuming kinship based on certain features (and again, lacking the actual bone to study) - and that's to say nothing about individual variability, how mature that individual animal even was, how it ranked in terms of size within its own species, and so on. The 190 foot / 200 ton mythical estimate is PROBABLY wrong, Carpenter may well be closer to the true mass (maybe 80 to 100 tons) - but tthat depends on a lot of IFS and there's enormous room for error. Assuming the bone actually existed and was not a hoax, it would undeniably be a VERY huge animal - in mass comparable to at least SOME blue whales on the lower end of tthe spectrum and easily longer than the blue whale's typical adult length - but again, there are SO many unknown variables here it is impossible to say anything with certainty except that it was a very, very big animal if it existed.

[@kalevipoeg6916]

PART II (CONTINUED): That was not the only huge sauropod though - some got truly gigantic. In length, no doubt, they met or exceeded blue whales. In weight, is very much harder to say for the biggest of the big, just given the scarcity of the fossil record itself. Consider the fossil record. It is not a 1:1 representation at ALL of that ecosystem. It's VERY rare to become a fossi in the first place, and there's a bias against very large bones which do not tend to be small enough to meet one primary requirement of becoming a fossil, which is to be rapidly buried after death. Sauropods lived on land, compounding the problem. So already, there's a huge bias AGAINST preserving the biggest sauropods, much less complete skeletons we can base good mass estimates on. In LIGHT of that, consider what one SINGLE specimen consisting of a handful of bones of one individual animal says about the species as a whole in terms of size potential. Not a whole lot. That's a VERY small sample size. The average man in the west is 5'9" (175 cm) tall and 170 lbs if fit. The tallest man ever recorded was 8'11.75" Robert Pershing Wadlow, and the heaviest man was hanging around the half ton mark. The smallest adult humans wouldn't even come up to my knee. Human beings ALONE have enormous variability in stature - I myself am talller than 94% of the world population of men, and I'm not even a giant. This is true of EVERY species: there exist the equivalent of Yao Ming and Shaq or even Robert Wadlow in EVERY species. Huge specimens, far outside the norm but very real. A recent paper concluded that the largest ever T. rex could have been 70% heavier than the almost 10-ton estimate for the largest specimen described so FAR. But this study also goes on to say this would also apply for ANY dinosaur species - and this is the crux of it. It's INSANELY unlikely that on or a few individuals in the fossil record - first of all - are even accurately being assessed in terms of mass (how much fat did they store? Exactly how much muscle and where? Internal organ size and arrangement? skin? very hard to know from bones alone) - but even MORE unlikely by FAR is the assumption that one or two individuals represent anything even CLOSE to the largest that species produced in the millions of years it existed on this planet. With blue whales, there's a BIT less of an excuse - we HAVE living ones so we have a decent idea of their approximate range - but with dinosaurs known from 3 bones from one specimen? It's ludicrous to assume that one individual HAPPENED to be adult size AND the bigger sex (if dimorphism existed) AND was exceptional or even average for its species AND happened to be the one that made it to the fossil record. Far more likely is that any given animal is a juvenile, and in fact we DO see a lot of juveniles in the dinosaur record, and a lot of signs that the animal was not done growing - bones not fused and so on. it may also be the case and in fact there's evidence FOR it being the case that at least dinosaurs were indeterminate growers - meaning, they got bigger the longer they lived, like crocodilians. But what animals tend to DIE the most? That's right. The sick. The wounded. The young and the dumb. Sometimes the elderly, but the number of juveniles and young adults in any population tends to outnumber the elderly at the end of their rope, and in nature, few animals get the luxury of reaching the maximum age for their species, typically succumbing to predation, disease, natural disaster or starvation long before then. Location and available food, too, impacts growth. So, on that note, if you apply that "up to 70% larger" study to the biggest sauropods, you definitely would end up with masses that very much rival or exceed the norm for the blue whale, even if the unusual giants among blue whales might be able to pack on more weight on the high end by virtue of food supply and living in water. A 100 ton sauropod becomes a 170 ton one - easily surpassing the NORM for blues. If you take some of the more insane estimates from the past - 120, 150 tons in some cases or the 200 tons once estimated for Maraapunisaurus, and assumed a jumbo sized specimen of that taxon...you'd leave the blue whale in the dust. My point here is not to dethrone the blue whale or say with any certainty that X or Y dinosaur was heavier - rather, it is to invite skepticism as to the max weight and length so often thrown around for blue whales, questioning the methods of measurement / evaluation of size (typically, photogrammetry, not setting one on a scale - to see the issue with this, try doing this with humans and then weighing them, and you'll find you come up with a broad assortment of weights, many of which will be off from the true measurement if you go by volume mass estimation based on photographs alone - and on a whale sized thing, these errors can be even bigger). My point is also to point out how very little we know about the maximum size of sauropod dinosaurs and other giants of the past, and how much we tend to just take the most recent weight or whatever estimate floating around and treat it as gospel when it's simply an estimate based on a particular set of assumption, methodologies and the available fossil record, which is severely lacking in the best of times. And finally, it's extremely likely that the size of the animals we have found in the fossil record does not even scratch the surface on what the largest individuals of the largest species ever were - and this is certainly VERY true for sauropod dinosaurs. In other words, whatever you THINK is the biggest they got, they almost certainly got a lot bigger than that. The 'biggest" in literature and the biggest in FACT are two very different concepts. We can only say they got stupidly huge - and probably more so than we've ever found yet. Mark my words, if you live to see the year 2100, you WILL see multiple new dinosaur species found which take the title of 'biggest dinosaur" - and even those won't be the *actually* biggest there ever was - the bigger ones just didn't get fossilized.

[@ShapeUpYT]

Nice writeup quite informative

[@shayan-gg]

@@kalevipoeg6916 really appreciate this information. thank you for your time to write so much.

[@tahsinler]

Nigga wrote a book in yt comments

[@shanetuma3845]

I'm not reading all that. I can, however, confidently say you're wrong. What is my evidence, you may ask? Good question.

[@novedad4468]

Until relatively recently, we knew very very little about giant triasic ichthyosaurs. Who knows if there aren't entire clades of giants that we haven't found or correctly identified. We tend to ignore just how much we don't know.

[@TheVividen]

It's kind of insane how much of the spotlight they've taken since 2018. They went from a group with only fringe references to one of the most popular prehistoric clades in less than a decade

[@novedad4468]

@@TheVividen I don't know how much of it has been new discoveries, or that the attention gained encouraged scientists to revisit and publish relatively forgotten fossils that used to collect dust in museum collections, but it was mind-blowing to me to find out about this group and made me realise that this could happen again in the future

[@jeffreygao3956]

Maybe and possibly is not enough for me.

[@DJuuJ]

It can be as well as it cannot, but it seems more likely that the blue whale is the largest since we live in a world where the predators of baleen whales went extinct allowing them to grow as big as they could, it's a very propitious scenario for the largest animal to appear

[@BustYoDome]

That can be said about anything in existence 🤦🏽‍♂️

[@GeneralGoji]

Why is this a question, we all know Caseoh is here

[@TheVividen]

That is a fair point!

[@thecannonball34]

Queso?

[@Tryhard-j6w]

@@thecannonball34 As in: Caseoh (not spelled Queso) is a popular streamer. He is known for his funny clips and his size (he is obese)

[@AndrewDavis-sj6mb]

​@@TheVividenI put this vid a great creational,Biblical 👍

[@thecannonball34]

​@Tryhard-j6w Ah. Seems kinda mean, but it's part of his appeal and he embraces it then 🤷‍♀️

[@alexshingleton]

Should also bare in mind that Blue whales used to be bigger, but unsurprisingly being big wasn't very useful against whalers, so they got smaller. So blue whales may have been closer to the 213 ton weight before mass whaling

[@loowick4074]

not really, the 120 tonners would be 140 tonners at best since their population to prey ratio isnt that drastic since despite alot of food depletion they themselves are small in number

[@verstappen9937]

But ALSO you should bare in mind that statistically alone the chances that we have the largest species ever in current day when so many monsters we know existed in the past (and gigantism was a lot more common back then) is VERY unlikely. I would say close to zero. I mean consider that NO species pretty much as we know it has not had a larger version of itself that has gone extinct. Primates, insects, birds every species you can name has a larger version in the past and that’s just what we know about

[@brandonwalker5011]

I know evolution can happen surprisingly fast but wouldn't this be an adaptation happening in a few generations at most. Pretty sure that's too fast for that drastic of an adaptation.

[@joelrodriguez9611]

@@brandonwalker5011 Yea not buying the "adaptation" card here. But, there might be a chance the bigger ones phenotipically speaking were decimated by whalers, and therefore the smaller ones ended up being the ones who reproduced.

[@Dell-ol6hb]

@@brandonwalker5011 I mean not really? If the whaling industry killed tens of thousands of the largest blue whales then that would only leave smaller blue whales that were less desireable to whalers to reproduce, this could easily bring down the average mass of the whales over a few generations considering the relatively small population of blue whales and how vast of a scale industrial whaling was done. This is similar to how some populations of elephants over time have become dramatically more likely to be born without tusks because poachers tend to ignore elephants that don't have tusks so they end up being the ones who survived to reproduce and pass the trait on to their offspring. So it's not so much adaptation as it being selected for by human hunting pressure.

[@iksarguards]

Ossë, The Lord of Waters. Someone naming Icthyosaurs is a pretty solid Tolkien fan.

[@TheVividen]

It's me hehe

[@SarthakChaudhary-vu8fp]

🤓 um actually it's Ulmo , who is the lord of water ossë is rather a maia ( angelic being similar to Gandalf) . Sorry if I was annoying

[@orangecitrus8056]

@@SarthakChaudhary-vu8fp facinating

[@frost7463]

6:52 Hector’s ichthyosaur jumpscare

[@TheWigglergler]

I appreciate that you mentioned the issue of sample sizes; this is often conveniently ignored when people discuss the largest animals. Really, the only extinct animal over 40-50 tonnes on average that we likely know the full size range of is O. megalodon. I'd say that the blue whale is the best contender for the title of largest animal known, followed by the giant ichthyosaurs, then "Bruhathkayosaurus", then Perucetus. Nothing else is really in contention, except for maybe Maraapunisaurus, which is even more fragmentary than everything else here and may be exaggerated. All of those, along with a handful of other sauropod dinosaurs, were more likely than not larger on average than any living species other than the blue whale. However, none of them are especially likely to be the true largest animal ever, given the rarity of fossilization.

[@neo-filthyfrank1347]

I seem to recall there being an extinct baleen whale during the time of megalodon comparable in size to the blue whale. Haven't been able to find much about it though and I only recall seeing it on wikipedia a long time ago, perhaps 10 years ago.

[@_Qinglong]

​@@neo-filthyfrank1347 Balaenoptera sibbaldina.

[@johngr1747]

Nah, Maraapunisaurus (formerly known as Amphekoelias) was massively overestimated from what I've read. Argentinosaurus has been contested as the biggest dinosaur but still considered the biggest one by many.

[@peepiseal]

Anyway alot of the sauropod weights are overestimated, the reason why whales can be so huge is because they feed on plankton which gives them slot of nutrients

[@TheWigglergler]

@@peepiseal On the contrary, we have very good estimates of sauropods like Argentinosaurus that place them as larger than any whale other than the blue whale. These estimates have been corroborated by many different researchers, and it is quite unlikely that they are that far off. Highly fragmentary species like Bruhathkayosaurus are always suspect, but not because sauropods are just generally overestimated. Sauropods, due to their long necks, were likely able to consume massive amounts of plant matter with little movement or general effort, therefore circumventing the food problem. It is also apparent, from species like the sperm whale and O. megalodon reaching huge sizes (40+ tonnes on average for the larger sex of each species), that the diet of baleen whales is not a prerequisite for huge size.

[@kateglew580]

"Fuck this is a statistics thing isn't it" When people realise that T. Rex specimens such as Sue and Scotty are outliers when it comes to calculating the average size of the species

[@TheVividen]

Matt Dempsey has a very real point when he talks about the "Sue-ification" of T. rex. Most specimens just aren't as robust as the "public image" we now have of the animal thanks to Sue in particular, even correcting the issues with the mount

[@kateglew580]

@@TheVividen Oh yeah, he makes an excellent point. Just recently I heard a youtuber (not going to say who) state that the average T. Rex weighed 11 metric tons 😒

[@GODEYE270115]

@@TheVividenwhat are the current measurements of the average Rex as it stands

[@chazparr6132]

​@@GODEYE2701158 tons on average

[@Mike_The_Allosaurus]

@@GODEYE270115 id say about 9 tons?

[@davidefivi.1361]

Still, Sauropods are much more impressive in size considering the fact that they didn't have water to constantly support their mass

[@TheOverseerDebates]

Always good to be early to a Vividen video

[@TheVividen]

Great job on Indominus in the Mesozoic, by the way!

[@TheOverseerDebates]

@@TheVividenCheers!

[@cetologyh3906]

CetologyH/ Joe McClure here. There's preprint that provides some refined descriptions of size distributions and mass. I am working on another review going over baleen whales. I will discuss that an issue with Lomax et al., 2024's assessment of maturity is we have yet to fully discern if the mandible/surangular is informative of growth. It's important to note as a lot of early studies on whales and other taxa had to go through trial and error with different bones to discern which ones were reliable. Without the whole skeleton, Lomax et al. lacks that luxury. It may be that all the specimens they looked at seemed immature because the mandible is inherently uninformative. Even if it was, large animals typically exhibit incremental growth towards senescence, so many functional adult individuals will appear osteologically immature for the majority of adulthood. This is the case in whales as there's quite of a few records of osteologically immature 18+ m sperm whales and 29+ m blue whales that exceed 99% of adults. I've voiced these thoughts since Lomax et al. 2024 was published and recently another review by Gayford et al., 2024 echoed my very thoughts when discussing the matter as it applies to large fossil species in general.

[@TheVividen]

Thank you for your comment, Joe! I always value your feedback and I look forward to seeing more of your work!

[@cetologyh3906]

@@TheVividen I'm about 95% done with the baleen whale paper, but I want to get a few blog posts on small cetaceans out of the way first.

[@Dell-ol6hb]

Thank you for the insight

[@ramakrishnanjagannathan3202]

Well the aquatic reptile and mammal used a cheat code , and that is water . While on the other hand saurapods didn't necessarily use one other than air sacs soooo yea. That makes a difference?

[@DreadEnder]

Volume wise titanosaurs could possibly beat blue whales but being dinosaurs their densities were minuscule in comparison

[@yissibiiyte]

The chances of the (insert any adjective)-est animal to ever exist being alive right now, out of hundreds of millions of year of life, is ridiculously low.

[@loowick4074]

It's basically non existent We have to rely on biometric models and resource estimation to think the probability of an animal existing. Remember USA and other developed countries take paleontology seriously and record alot of fossils. In poorer countries the science is non existent. I've heard stories from Asia of fossils of shells being casually destroyed for building projects without a second thought. Even the fossils that survive very very few will be described. And to even survive to the modern era over millions of years of weathering and erosion is a lottery. Imagine living in a world where we never discovered t rex. It is a possibility that would have happened if america didn't take paleontology seriously.

[@r.k845]

This is untrue. Atleast for something like this. Getting over 100 tons is already a Herculean feat for animals even within the fossil record. Among all discovered fauna, whales have some of the best adaptations for large sizes we know of. That doesn’t mean the blue whale was definitely the biggest. But it’s not remotely “unlikely”.

[@novedad4468]

​@@loowick4074there's a reason why sooooo many iconic and record-breaking dinosaurs come from North America and it's got little to do with how special North America was at the time and a lot to do with modern economic biases.

[@timexyemerald6290]

​@@novedad4468 100%. We never know if there was even more giant more taller, heavier dinosaur existed

[@soudino2723]

@@timexyemerald6290 if they were bigger it likely wouldn't be by much as the very largest only came during the late cretaceous, even then they probably didn't exceed 130 tons as that weight would put an immense amount of stress on their skeleton (similar reason to why terrestrial mammals dont exceed 20 tons)

[@SmashBrosAssemble]

There was probably an early Triassic Ichthyosaur that was larger than the Blue Whale, will we ever find it? Who knows.

[@TheVividen]

Fingers crossed!

[@Unknown07-ic6kr]

I hope not i'm glad to have the blue whale as the biggest we'll ever have

[@Hhhh22222-w]

That's the same logic as "there could have been a blue whale larger than 200 tonnes but died before we could record it" Blue Whales have been around for millions of years, we only stayed accurately recording their sizes less than a hundred years...

[@secondbeamship]

Depends if it’s a filter feeder or not. But then again there could be a bigger whale that existed in the past as well.

[@bigbirdyboiz]

@@Unknown07-ic6kr good to know im not the only one.

[@andrewevenson2657]

How can a creature like an argentinosaurus even exist at that size? It’s insane to think an organic and mobile creature can support all that weight, but let’s not forget fluid pressure is dictated by the total height of the fluid, which means their blood pressure would have gone from like 1 psi at their head, to over 30 psi at their feet. That’s about half the water pressure of city water supplies. Imagine their heart pumping 24/7 at that pressure, and imagine the volume of blood they have to transport. Sometimes I wonder if we severely misunderstand dinosaurs anatomy, or if these creatures physiology is just extraordinarily impressive.

[@urielmarles7036]

In argentina, anything is possible

[@mohammadhunain3610]

I'm a biology student and learning the anatomy and functions just amazes me plus the complexity of DNA. It just proves the existence of god. He must have also made them in such a way that they could have existed at this massive size. Just remember the chances of earth existing here are near to null but it does exist here perfectly and because of this humanity and animals thrive.

[@diegodankquixote-wry3242]

Blue whale enjoyers stay wining

[@timexyemerald6290]

Ichtheosaurus enjoyer: our time is close 🗿

[@Don-ds3dy]

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!! 4 billion years of life on earth and we live in the 10 million year time period where we get to see the biggest heaviest thing that ever lived!!! That's like a 1/800 chance.

[@jameshayes3175]

The references provided as you go is awesome

[@InternetDarkLord]

Blue whales may have been much bigger in the past, too. 1. Hunting tends to make animals smaller because hunters take the biggest prey that they can find. 2. Large size is an adaptation to keep warm. During the 20 or so Glacial Maximums of the Ice Ages, whales may have grown much bigger. So Blue Whales might have been much bigger in the Ice Ages.

[@niocriste2705]

Late correction, but the keeping warm is only part of the equation, food availability is another. There was actually some genetic studies on Blue Whales that argued there was a smaller population of Blue Whales during the Last Glacial Maximum than there were during the Holocene(prior to whaling ofc), due to the massive increase in ice sheets disrupting ocean currents and reducing krill biomass as a result. In addition, while hunters due have a tendency to make animals smaller, keep in mind that's also because those hunters have a clear visualization of a bigger animal on land. Blue Whales were hunted en-masse and rather indiscriminately for the purpose of margarine rather than for big-game hunting's sake, so there really wasn't an incentive to hunt "bigger" blue whales. Add onto that recent discoveries that suggest that Blue Whales are still genetically healthy(no severe inbreeding depression or anything) , it's possible that there are still 95+ft whales out there.

[@dylan9013]

What a fascinating topic. When you mentioned outliers, I immediately thought about the height of humans as a reference. The average human male is roughly 69" tall. At 81", that man would be taller than 99.997% of men and is still no where near the biggest recorded outlier of all time for a human male's height (107"). Obviously humans probably don't scale the same as whales or ichthyosaurs, but it shows just how large certain members of a species can get relative to the average. That logic in reference to the ichthyosaurs means some unfathomable weights!

[@cetologyh3906]

The issue with humans is that they lack constraints on outliers the way large animals do. Most record size megafauna stick closer to the bounds of a normal distribution of adult size, and so do whales. What would be a better idea is to compare the relative variance across different species of megafauna and scale from a viable estimate of the average for the fossil species of interests.

[@neo-filthyfrank1347]

cringe comment

[@dylan9013]

@@neo-filthyfrank1347 Thank you for your constructive criticism

[@neo-filthyfrank1347]

@@dylan9013 It is the fate of underage animal enthusiasts to use middle school understanding of statistics to reason out gargantuan proportions for their favorite animals.

[@dylan9013]

@@neo-filthyfrank1347 Thank you for the second dosage of constructive criticism.

[@beyondfubar]

I couldn't help but notice the shockingly low amount of herbivores. Nearly always the largest in their environment, but not well represented among the largest of all. Interesting, and a bit counter to expectations.

[@TheVividen]

It is interesting, and quite strange...

[@zsan157]

That’s true on land, however for aquatic animals it’s different, and since all the largest animals come from the ocean, there aren’t gonna be a ton of herbivores on that list.

[@The_Story_Of_Us]

Obviously this depends on some significant assumptions, that being that Ichthyosaurs, a completely unique group of animals whose last common ancestor with anything alive today split off over 250 million years ago for which we have a ridiculously small sample size of compared to their real life populations, the odds are very slim that we’ve found the biggest ones, but how slim that’s it’s close to the biggest? Plus, the math on the mass is difficult even if those size disparities hold true for Ichthyosaurs, because we’re using this multiplier on mass we’re estimating based on single jaw bones, which can swing massively in either direction not just based on how much fat and muscle these animals possessed, but also what shape their bodies were, which we’re only guessing right now. Were their jaws massive compared to the rest of their bodies? Were they deep-set or slender? Did they have long bodies or long tails? So is there a chance that the Blue Whale is not the largest animal to ever live? Yes. Is it likely? No. Would it be a scientific claim to say it wasn’t the biggest animal ever? Not at all. Until there’s substantive evidence to the contrary, the Blue Whale is indeed the largest animal known to science.

[@Dell-ol6hb]

Yes I fully agree

[@krlllx]

Why do you say that it’s unlikely. From my perspective Earth has been around so long with so many unknown creatures that the odds of us being alive alongside the largest creature ever seem more unlikely to me. Of course actual evidence is more important though.

[@The_Story_Of_Us]

@@krlllx Yeah intuition might say otherwise, but intuition and reality don't always line up. You need to add the context of the fossil record. After all we know there are no non-sauropod dinosaurs that even come close to whale sizes. We know no birds got to whale-like sizes. We know that no paleozoic animals got to the sizes of even medium sized whales, because no fossils from that era even come close to approaching those sizes. We know that no plesiosaurs grew as large as a blue whale, no mosasaurs did, I could go on. So far the only groups of animals that even come close are: Otodontid sharks, specifically Megalodon, but the fossil record seems to show that an upper limit for their size is smaller than that of Blues. Sauropods are a possible candidate with lost specimens like Bruhathkayosaurus, but so far, sauropod mass estimates sit in the upper range of MAYBE 120-130 tonnes, certainly not 200 tonnes. Then there's ichthyosaurs, the shastasaurid lineage seems like the ONLY remotely probable candidate. IF we're estimating their sizes correctly based on fragmentary jaw fossils, the largest one, the Aust ichthyosaur, might grow up to 32-33 meters, which is LONGER than the biggest blue, but mass estimates for that animal don't seem to be quite up to par even so. There is some indicationt that they may have grown past that point, so we can't say for CERTAIN whether there were any shastasaurid ichthyosaurs that were larger than the largest Blue whale... But that's not how science works of course. Science cannot say with any real surety that ichthyosaurs grew more massive than 200 tonnes, but science can say quite confidently that blue whales can reach that size, seeing as how they're alive to be studied and even weighed in large datasets. Now it's obviously also quite probable that there is MORE shastasaurid evidence of behemoths that are either left to be discovered or never will be, but the probability of evidence existing doesn't say anything much about what that evidence would show. Paleontology, zoology, that whole set of scientific natural studies, a comprehensive evaluation of the evidence suggests that while not a complete guarantee, it is quite probable that the blue whale is the most massive animal that has ever lived. But it's fun to imagine that not being the case, so we can let our biases cloud our judgment on the subject.

[@krlllx]

@@The_Story_Of_Us you are making many sense

[@william3100]

​@The_Story_Of_Us probable based on our current, very incomplete knowledge, in which someone on here made a huge assessment about how the 200+ ton estimates of blue whales is questionable to say the least. Science is not the end all be all of nature, and assuming something is unlikely based on our understanding when there is so much we don't know is ludicrous. It IS likely an animal in the past surpassed the largest blue whale in size. Is it the most likely thing in the world? Maybe not but it's currently likely. That is both intuition AND reality working there.

[@Aorun7]

It is not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. -Charles Darwin

[@timexyemerald6290]

That is why microbes survived the cretaceous period 🧐

[@ExtremeMadnessX]

And who's the most lucky at the time.

[@frost7463]

Very true. This is why invertebrates like jellyfish who literally don’t have brains have survived whereas countless other species have died out.

[@PrehistoricMagazine]

Great video as always I had no clue megalodon could weigh around 120 tons. That’s insane Jason Statham would have a hard time with it. Very mentally stimulating video as always. Mike from Prehistoric Magazine

[@D.E.z.F.5]

Otodus sharks: Otodus (Megaselachus) megalodon: 17-21 metres and 56 to 140 tons -- Early Miocene to Early Pliocene Otodus (Megaselachus) chubutensis: 12-15 metres and 41.2 metric tons (50 shorts tons) -- Early oligocene to Early Pliocene Otodus (Carcharocles) angustidens: 11-14 metres and 39 metric tons -- Late Eocene to Early Miocene Otodus (Carcharocles) sokolovi: 11-13 metres and 33 tons -- Eocene to Oligocene Otodus (Carcharocles) debrayi: 11-12 metres and 23.4 tons -- Early Eocene to Middle Eocene Otodus (Carcharocles) auriculatus: 8-10 metres and 11 tons -- Late Eocene to Late Oligocene Otodus (Carcharocles) poseidoni: 11-12 metres and 17 metric tons -- Middle Eocene to Late Eoce Otodus (Carcharocles) aksuaticus: 6-8 metres and 8+ tons -- Early Eocene Otodus (Otodus) obliquus: 9-12 metres and 17 tons -- Early Paleocene to Middle Miocene Otodus (Otodus) naidini: 5-6 metres -- Early Paleogene Otodus (Otodus) minor: 5-6 metres -- Early Paleocene

[@AYO_TFSideswipe]

ok? and? from google. it has nothing to do with this and its not like this comment section is filled with adults, its just kids tha like sharks

[@oberonpanopticon]

I always liked the idea that there might’ve been some massive soft-bodied animal at some point that just never fossilized for any of a dozen reasons, and we’d never know.

[@ovs4744]

Size and intellect are the best evolutionary traits in history, the fact that the biggest and most intelligent beings are alive today is not a surprise.

[@ExtremeMadnessX]

Or just a coincidence...

[@ovs4744]

@@ExtremeMadnessX a 4 billion year coincidence…

[@swagmundfreud666]

Simply untrue. Size is not an advantage during a mass extinction, usually it's a liability eg in the KT extinction when everything larger than a chicken went extinct except for crocodilians (and even then it may only have been juveniles that survived). Intellect is also not necessarily always advantageous as it takes up a ton of resources without much immediate effect hence why only one species has ever gone down the ever increasing intellect feedback loop (us, of course. We can see this in a micro level in how IQ tests need to be made harder every few decades because the new generations are just more intelligent, not due completely to physical evolutionary pressures but instead societal and technological evolution). There's no reason for example for a rabbit to become more intelligent because it fills it's niche fine with the intelligence it does have. Evolving a whole new part of the brain for speech like we did would not be advantageous for a rabbit because it would take up so many resources that they just don't have, to evolve something they just don't need.

[@ovs4744]

@ i like how you’re already contradicting yourself in a single sentence lol. Just say you have no idea what you’re talking about and move on…

[@ExtremeMadnessX]

@@ovs4744 ?

[@HouseOfValsburg]

I've been waiting for a video about this topic for weeks now, finally it's here! Or maybe months

[@godzillakingofthemonsters5812]

Also heard the largest actually measured was 190 tons, with the bigger one being an estimate. Also noteworthy is the sauropod paper, with again one giant specimen next to thousands of whales, and 3 100+ tonners were estimated.

[@TheVividen]

I've heard that as well, but figured I'd go with the higher estimate for blue whale to give it a better representation (given that the giant ichthyosaurs are mostly fragmentary). And yeah, even with a tiny sample size it's crazy how enormous sauropods are.

[@GatorBoyCL]

Sauropods were technically some longer but they count for he size by weight

[@sabnox9869]

I once read a comment on another video saying something like, multicellular life has been around for 500 million years now, I find it highly unlikely that the biggest animal to ever exist exists today..

[@PrehistoricMagazine]

Is this an accepted study I’ve never heard of megalodon reaching 120 tons. Maybe I heard it wrong though. Thx, Mike from Prehistoric Magazine

[@Barinasuchus99]

No the biggest from a peer reviewed study is from Gottfriend el al 1996 113 tons.

[@roybatty-]

We can safely deduce that the largest animal to ever live was aquatic and it was probably bigger than the largest recorded blue whales. How much bigger is debatable but it is unlikely that it would dwarf the blue whale. Perhaps 10-20% larger.

[@DWABA]

As part of the “et al” in Lomax et al, I am always excited for Ichthyotitan representation. And so much more on the horizon!

[@TheVividen]

Thank you so much for your comment! As part of the team, what would your thoughts be on the best ichthyosaurs to scale Ichthyotitan from? (And which awesome scientist are you, if you don't mind me asking?)

[@oreopharaoh3748]

The argument at the end was the cherry on top

[@DreadEnder]

It’s unfortunate but biology as a science doesn’t deal in absolutes and palaeontology even less so. It pains me that we will never know all the answers. But that is why I have decided to dedicate my life to finding as many as a can!

[@TheVividen]

We need more people like you!

[@DreadEnder]

@@TheVividen thank you! That means a lot to me. You’ve been a great inspiration to me!

[@neo-filthyfrank1347]

@@DreadEnder *cries in 30,000 a year*

[@cameronwalton8270]

Isn’t just knowing you don’t know okay sometimes? We don’t have to know or be right about everything or anything.

[@DreadEnder]

@@cameronwalton8270 we don’t but the biggest and best thing about humans is our curiosity to learn more. As a scientist I will never be content with not knowing something even if I know I won’t know it.

[@Runistic]

There is actually a confirmed species larger than the largest blue whale. Pando, an aspen tree in Utah, has an elaborate system of stems and roots that are only one tree, but have more than 40k stems at the surface and an estimated weight of 4000 tonnes. Although personally it feels like a bit of a cheat, and I wouldn’t really count it in these kinds of competitions, it’s still pretty interesting.

[@visiblepain7676]

is a tree an animal? no

[@Runistic]

@@visiblepain7676 that’s why I said species

[@aidangilman9190]

That thumbnail I love it

[@Jomi91]

They're saying those recent Icthyosaurs were equal.

[@TheVividen]

It's very interesting how ichthyosaurs were only truly gigantic in the Late Triassic.

[@Aesthetickenda1]

The fact that we are alive while the largest animal to ever live on this planet is still around is awesome

[@migsyh2065]

Gotta be another prehistoric sea creature for sure

[@SonLucasX]

I don't think we should put the hammer down until more fossils are found. But science is like that anyway, a change, all the time with new discoveries and studies.

[@DuckTapeman1233]

some of the only contenders for longest is diplodocus, argentinasaurs, barosaurus, and Amphicoelias Fragillimus. these are sauropods that are estimated to have been sizes that range from 30 meters to 60 meters

[@mitchellskene8176]

There might have been an animal that was longer than a Blue Whale, in Earths past, but there certainly wasn't anything that weighed as much, as the heaviest Blue Whale.

[@timexyemerald6290]

Being longer than blue whale is not that much harder than you thing. Blue whale is already not the longest animal in present day to begine with. 😅.Siphonophores is record breaking 50meter long.

[@HYDROCARBON_XD]

@@timexyemerald6290siphonophors are colonies,

[@irmaosmatos4026]

The Blue Whale isn't even the longest today, the title goes to the lion's mane jellyfish

[@mitchellskene8176]

@@irmaosmatos4026 Are you sure? I thought the title belonged to The Bootlace Worm!! In 1864, one was discovered that was 180ft long.

[@irmaosmatos4026]

@@mitchellskene8176 wow, that's crazy, but are they the longest by average?

[@tiffanylamarca6914]

Another Great Video!!!

[@Local-Of-The-Mitten-State]

1:33 chonky grandpa whale

[@UnwantedGhost1-anz25]

You're almost halfway there. 👏

[@TenorCantusFirmus]

Considering how difficult is to estimate not only the size of ancient animals, but also that of some of nowadays' biggest animals (weight estimates for the biggest blue whales have been tentative because they've had to be weighted in chunks, and no true weighting attempts had been done on bowheads), I think it's best to group them into "leagues". Ichthyotitan is inside the very same "league" with the blue whale, and Shastasaurus with the bowhead, with various theoretical models showing for an animal to grow beyond 33 metres in length and 250 tons in weight to be virtually impossible (large Sauropods might have had some "exemptions" about length because of their structure, with long and thin necks and tails, but costraints for the weight might have been more severe because they were terrestrial/ground-dwelling animals): the largest Cetaceans and Ichthyosaurs are both practically at this limit, thus suggesting we are in front of the joint true giants of the Animal Kingdom. Must be added nowadays blue whales, as well as other large Cetacean species (bowhead, right and sp3rm whales) seem to reach smaller sizes than in the past, due to evolutive pressure under the whaling industry which specifically targeted larger, more profitable specimens: if nowadays it's uncommon to encounter individuals above 120 tons, that was not the case in the past. Unfortunately, greed has shrunk these giants, both in numbers and in size and we don't know if they'll ever return to their fullest potential... At least we have stopped before we had to add them to the list of fossil-only species, and we now can discuss about giants we can see as living specimens.

[@samuellatu3123]

I was watching httyd and when I saw the red death I wanted to know it’s size so it’s 100ft tall, 400ft long, 500ft wingspan BUT WEIGHS BLOODY 22 TONS! THE BLUE WHALE IS 4X SMALLER BUT 10X HEAVIER!

[@Askslddl]

I thought blue whale max at 190 tonnes for the 27.6m specimen , and 29.9 m for the scientists record .

[@cetologyh3906]

31 m is based on the subset of commercial data from when blue whales have been more reliably measured. I have also tested this against relative simple calculations statistical probability that indicate that 31 m coincides with the expected limit.

[@Phsoacr]

there was a recorded female that was 198 tonnes and a 31 m specimen that would've been like 200 tonnes+ theres also a larger one that could've been 230 - 250 tonnes but its not very reliable

[@cetologyh3906]

@@Phsoacr There was never a female blue whale that was directly weighed to be 198 tonnes. I've deeply reviewed all existing literature on the matter. One study cites a specimen weighing 199 tonnes, but that was a unit conversion error where they assumed 196 tons referred to imperial long tons (which are slightly heavier than Metric tons), when it actually referred to U.S. short tons. So that whale weighed 178 metric tons.

[@Нургуль.Тугельбаева]

​@@cetologyh3906 I heard that because of metabolic and energetic limitations probably biggest blue whales are not longer than 33 meters

[@Pessi-m7e8h]

​@cetologyh3906 Longest blue whale A female measured at 110 ft 17 in (33.58 m) in 1909 at Grytviken, South Georgia Largest marine animal ever killed by hand harpoon A blue whale killed in 1910 at Twofold Bay, NSW, that was 97 ft (29.57 m) long Blue whales are the largest living animal and are probably the largest creature to have ever existed. They have other record-breaking achievements, including: The biggest hearts on the planet The ability to give birth to the biggest babies The ability to make calls reaching 188 decibels, making them the loudest animal on Earth

[@TheOwneroftheIC]

Given the fragmentary nature of Ichthyotitan remains and the fact that it can't be scaled off of either of its relatives that it lived across the globe from and 10 million years after, it's likely that when more remains come out we'll find that none of the projections fit and it (they if the Aust Colossus is a different genus) was considerably smaller than we expected. Just based on the ecology of the time as well, nothing in Earth's history outweighed the second heaviest whale, let alone the blue whale.

[@badabing3391]

could any single prehistoric macropredator predate on the largest blue whales?

[@thegamingbean953]

I don't think a blue whale could defend its self from a large megalodon attack

[@Neonus_randompersenus]

Megalodon and livyathan would be a good candidate

[@soudino2723]

a very large megalodon and maybe a Triassic ichthyosaur

[@sorrowtw]

any massive otodus

[@Barinasuchus99]

No the biggest Blue whale is about 3x the weight of the biggest macropredator

[@alvinbontuyan279]

It's just amazing to think that the most massive animal ever to live on this earth (that we know about) is still alive today

[@thegamingbean953]

Yes and its godzilla

[@leediaz5690]

the possibilities are limitless because we only know less than 5% of all species that lived on Earth.

[@rexyjp1237]

Probaly, im guessing it's probaly an ichtyosaur or basilosaur considering ichtyotitan and perucetus.

[@kjursa]

Born too early for toroton, born too late for paracatherium. Born just in time for O̷̜͉̊o̶̘͖̅̅Ó̴͔̌Ȍ̶̠̦̗̊̓ó̶̢͕̟Ơ̵͉̊̑͜Ö̴͕̦̝́O̷̙̙͂̈́Ò̵̰̥O̷͍̳̚͠O̵̦̫͂̓o̸̱͓̓̂̐͜ȯ̸͕͇̋̓ǒ̷̘̲ö̵̹́͐ȍ̶͖̭o̶̩͑

[@username.exenotfound2943]

i bet whatever era had the most krill and stuff would have had the biggest sea creatures since imagine if you just kept feeding a blue whale to see how fat it could get

[@PrehistoricMagazine]

I love videos like this. Great thought provoking stuff. Mike

[@threefrogsbuilding]

Have you tried to compare Blastoise ? How about Snorlax ?

[@TheVividen]

I tried at first, but a wild Tyranitar appeared and blew up my recording studio. It was an interesting Wednesday night.

[@ironiccookies2320]

It is the biggest ever that we currently know of. Reptiles could get insanely big. Just look at the Mesozoic era dominated by giant reptiles. There could be an undiscovered super giant reptile out there whose fossils are deep beneath the ocean sea floor and we'll never know about it. And also the fact that there's only a 1% of any living creatures actually being fossilized.

[@Tryhard-j6w]

McClure describes a new maximum for the Sperm Whale as 21.0 meters & 99.3 tonnes. He describes the largest specimen as 20.8 meters, falsely described as 20.7 meters by Wood, Gerald (1983), and 97-98 tonnes. 120 tonnes for a maximum sized 27 meter Fin Whale wouldn’t be a problem if it grew proportionately, but it doesn’t. McClure states that whales get thinner as they get longer. A weight of 100 tonnes would be more accurate. The most recent weight estimates for Bowhead and NP Right Whale resulted in a maximum of ~150 tonnes. And moot point: Megalodon has a specimen driven maximum of 155.6 tonnes or 150 tonnes for paucity.

[@Fhkfskfhk]

He never claimed that the North Pacific right whale could reach 167 tons, rather about 127, perhaps 150, but no more

[@Tryhard-j6w]

@@Fhkfskfhk He used a specimen from Oil Barrel scaling to produce a number of 167 tonnes. I will site it to see which of us has the correct answer.

[@Tryhard-j6w]

@@Fhkfskfhk “The heaviest flensed weight measured for NPRWs was 106.5 tonnes from a 17.4-meter female; the intact weight would have been 114 tonnes” (19.8/17.4)^3*114 = ~167t While SCL may not be the best in this case, it was my methodology. However I understand in his data table he references 127 tonnes.

[@Fhkfskfhk]

@@Tryhard-j6w You never quoted his words about the fact that right whales can reach a length of 167 tons. The 17.4 m long and 114 tonne individual was exceptionally massive, this does not mean that the largest individual would have the same proportions, we also have a female blue whale 27.6 m long and 190 tonne if scaled to 31.1 m of an individual, you get a mass of 272 tons, although in reality a whale of this length will weigh no more than 220 tons

[@Tryhard-j6w]

@@Fhkfskfhk His ideals of whales getting thinner as they get longer was applied only to Balaenoptera no? And I was wrong about him quoting 167 tonnes, my bad. It was a calculation I had done using SCL.

[@niIIer1]

It is pretty wild that you can take 3 african elephants and fit it into that 16 ton uncertainty of the weight of the blue whale.

[@loowick4074]

Prehistoric blue whale

[@ChiChiLand299]

Fact that the ichthyosaur was still growing could have just been a sign of indeterminate growth rather than being the average size even if it was maxed out it might have still been growing.

[@MeanBeanComedy]

What a load of crap!! Blue whale is still Number One!! #MammalSupremacy

[@coryfice1881]

Any animal in the fossil record that could reach the blue whale in size can probably be counted on your hands. It's such an extreme size to even achieve.

[@GetToThePointAlready]

The only animal bigger than the blue whale, is your mom.

[@notyourdaddude1957]

Someone already made that joke, get original or don't comment kid.

[@ainishei3748]

In a book i still have, there's a dinosaur called amphicoelous that said it was longer than a blue whale but not bigger. I'm pretty sure after recent discoveries the actual size was exaggerated and it was much les longer and smaller.

[@franciscocastillo8004]

your mom

[@franciscocastillo8004]

i apologize

[@Vratty]

@@franciscocastillo8004 Good ending

[@dalecaswell4217]

Well put.

[@geoduckgeoscience4300]

Wonderful video as always, very interesting :)

[@crappozappo]

"Skeletal fractionation" sounds like a term you could use as part of a prank to bamboozle someone into actually believing that oil comes from dino bones 😅

[@HYDROCARBON_XD]

I don't doubt there were whales that were over 50 meters in lenght considering titanosairios which were on land massively impacting their size due to gravity, imagine on water where that isn't a problem

[@humanity-m5l]

Yeah there is, this comic i wrote when i was 12 included a creature that was 4 km long and weighed about 900 000 metric tons

[@CriticallyCorrect]

Listen here you dino nerd keep up the good work popularizing the field of study, we need the funding to understand the alien like past of this planet just for the sake of coolness and interest and you make that more likely to happen with your vids keep it up!

[@jordanious7711]

Good video. And correct. It seems like all these really large creatures are roughly around the same size an that the "largest" was either a statistical anomaly or just a simple issue of the data sizes being different. Simply put, blue whales are the biggest because we can count them easier. Theres probably an upper limit to how large an animal can get and it seems like we have examples of many animals getting to around that size. There might be a couple examples of individuals growing larger but you can't really include those abnormalities when you're only able to pick from a couple examples from other species. Being 7 foot tall is pretty rare but if the blue whales we're picking from all play in the NBA 7 foot is going to seem pretty normal. A little unfair to compare Shaq to lil joe down the road who wants to be a chemical engineer.

[@bartolomeorizzo]

hello! loving your videos! Since dino sizes are really interesting and provide engaging videos, what about the biggest dinos of less talked about groups? hadrosauridae, Tyrephorans? Ornithopoda as a whole? Ankylosaurids only? Iguanodontidae? Ceratopsidae? Chasmosaurinae?

[@TheVividen]

Thank you! I'm glad you like the channel! I hope to gradually make "Mega-insert-group-here" videos for quite a few ancient animal clades. So far I've done Megasauropods, Megatheropods, and Megaichthyosaurs.

[@bartolomeorizzo]

@@TheVividen lovely! I winder how it will be for less known animals? For example ankylosaurids, there are some obscure specimen aren't there? Thankyou for the beautiful videos!

[@niharg2011]

Bro edged Big Blue til the end only to say "NOPE"

[@lukaskoch2508]

amazing video

[@TheVividen]

Thank you!

[@lukaskoch2508]

@@TheVividen exactly that question i was asking recently - my guess was right, and your answer more than amazing

[@username.exenotfound2943]

google seems to be a bit iffy with this question so might as well ask, whats bigger(height weight overall basically) the paraceratherium or the paleoxodon

[@smw2510]

Giant Triassic “Ichthyosaurs” Probably Did Not Even Exist, And Their Bones Were Probably Just Those Of A Much Smaller Creature,

[@DreadEnder]

Yay Vividen uploaded!

[@ethribin4188]

We also have to consider that Osse WAS that max sized member of itsspecies, and not the average

[@fiercemonkey1]

Cool info dude! Do mor! 😊

[@Steverm3fy]

Cool video! Do you know when we are going to receive an update on the cope T. rex? Also, you mentioned something on museum skeletal reconstruction of T Rex being inaccurate. Can you make a video about that? Like what an accurate reconstruction would look like?

[@TheVividen]

No word on the timing of a Cope update, unfortunately, but work is being done behind the scenes. As for the second point, a paper is being worked on that I've had the privilege to watch take shape. It may not come out for several years, though...

[@Steverm3fy]

@@TheVividen 🥺😢😭 ok… thanks for all of your videos though. I really enjoy your posts

[@TheVividen]

@@Steverm3fy Thank you! I appreciate your support!

[@BERNARDONOVAISDASILVAaluno]

But if we count fungi as animals, Armillaria would win since its entire "body" covers an area of ​​3.8 square kilometers

[@Kingofmenaces]

I think the animals that have a real chance are the giant and colossal squids. It's theorized that the bigger they get, the deeper they go. So there could be absolute titans down in the deep depths.

[@bean370]

They weigh less then a great white unless some magic is going down under I don’t think their going to get that big

[@Kingofmenaces]

@bean370 Well until we actually see one and actually study it we won't know

[@bean370]

@ yeah but them getting about 300x bigger is a huge assumption

[@Kingofmenaces]

@bean370 woah, where did you get that number? The current size estimate for the giant squid is 43 feet, times 300 is 12,900. That's not a huge assumption that is a MASSIVE assumption. My best guess would be like 3 - 4× bigger at best.

[@bean370]

@ talking about weight not length

[@FJaypewpew]

Biggest standout to me is it’s absurdly unlikely the largest specimens have been fossilised, and as unlikely are we alive at the time to record current largest species However we do a very very good job all things considered I’m sure he says this in the video but I always have to say it, the largest specimens are shrouded in speculation purely because of the unlikely hood of that being the peak, just evidence that what we thought was the biggest isnt

[@elliotgandersen]

I am happy that we live in the same day as the largest animal. What a time to be alive.

[@johnserrano9689]

The most creative way a human being has ever said "i dont know"....

[@djj949]

This was great, glad I stumbled a crossed this and sub'd.

[@Alastordadeer]

You’d think a titan Leedsicthys could be bigger being the biggest fish, since small ones are 18 meters.

[@Patoto77]

Hi Vividen, could you talk about the Yellowstone hyperpredator in a video? I ask this because it was talked about in a part of SVP 2024 and it's strange for me that you are ignoring this. Sorry for the question.