The largest marine life in the world.
The largest creature in the world.
blue whale
The blue whale is the largest creature on earth. They are even bigger than the giant dinosaurs that lived on the earth millions of years ago.
The average length of blue whales is 25 meters, but some blue whales can grow to 30 meters. Brachiosaurus is one of the largest dinosaurs known, with a body length of only 20-25 meters.
Blue whale eat small fish, plankton and a lot of krill. They eat more than 4 tons of krill a day.
Relatively speaking, blue whales swim slowly, but when threatened, their swimming speed can exceed 30 kilometers per hour.
How big is the largest giant marine life in the world?
A few years ago, Carl Zimmer and I held a seminar on popular science writing, during which we discussed how to introduce science to readers in an equal way. Obviously, our discussion left a deep impression on Craig McClane, a biologist and blogger sitting in the audience. ? As I said, I've always wanted to write a report about how ridiculous the giant squid in circulation is. But I can't get rid of the feeling of self-righteousness. You said to me at that time: you should write, but you should find the right tone and intonation. So I started this work. ? McClane recalled.
In response to this question, McClane did not choose to write an angry rebuttal blog post, but decided to write a scientific paper, trying to accurately answer this simple and thorny question: How big is the largest animal in the ocean?
The ocean is home to giant animals: blue whales and great white sharks, giant squid and giant clams, elephant seals and Japanese spider crabs all live here. These giant creatures can easily arouse people's infinite reverie, but it is far from easy for scientists to catch them. Many giant creatures are extremely rare and cunning, and some still live in the inaccessible depths of the ocean. It is more difficult to measure their size. Some giant marine animals are washed ashore only occasionally, and their bodies begin to rot and deteriorate, so we have the opportunity to measure them. Others are just too big to be measured accurately. At the same time, the ocean itself is a place with limited knowledge and full of mystery, and everything about it is easy to be exaggerated.
For example, the giant squid, countless media reports that this very mysterious animal can grow to nearly 18 meters long, which McClane thinks is very barren. In fact, most giant squid are less than 9 meters long. Many giant squid are measured after being washed ashore. By the time they were measured, their bodies had begun to rot. Curious humans stretched out their tentacles to restore their original size, which led to inaccurate measurement results. There are even more bizarre measurement methods: someone once found a stranded giant squid and even measured its size with their own feet! There are countless unreliable data like this.
So McLean and Megan bulke of the University of New Mexico tried to find more accurate data. They recruited five enthusiastic undergraduates and joined a large number of colleagues to form an investigation team to investigate the size of a group of giant marine life. They verify the size data of these marine creatures in various ways: scientific literature, books, newsletters, newspapers and so on. I also asked my colleagues in the museum to measure the specimens in the museum, and got in touch with the organization that saved the stranded turtles to obtain data, and searched for the size of giant clams and snail shells through Yi Bei records. Through unremitting efforts, they * * * found the most accurate size data of the 25 largest giant marine animals.
The widely quoted data of some creatures are appalling: the largest squid that can be confirmed at present is 12 meters long, which is not small, but it is far from the circulating 18 meters; The heaviest walrus known weighs 1883 kg, while it is said that the walrus killed by hunters weighs 2500 kg, which is obviously an exaggeration.
The size data of some giant creatures were obtained long ago: for example, the size of the largest giant clam can be traced back to the 1960s and 1970s. There are also some giant creatures whose exact size data simply don't exist: for example, lion mane jellyfish and Japanese spider crab.
Besides,? Some giant marine animals may not be as big as before? McClane said. 1885, fishermen in the Aleutian Islands salvaged a huge Pacific octopus. It is measured that the end of one antenna is 9.8 meters long from the end of the other antenna. ? Two octopus experts I have worked with said that octopus is not as big as before, which may be caused by pollution or climate change? McClane said.
Although the size data obtained after excluding media hype has declined, the data in this paper still show that the ocean is full of impressive behemoths: there are giant barrel sponges in the ocean, which can grow to 2.5 meters wide even if they only contain two layers of cells with glue in the middle; There is also the Qian Yue jellyfish, which is two meters wide and weighs 200 kilograms. There are giant tube worms as long as 3 meters in the depths of the ocean, living near the fiery submarine crater; There are also 50 cm long deep-sea giant lice; There is also a giant great white shark, the front end of its nose can be as long as 7 meters from its strong tail.
The largest mammal in the ocean is the blue whale, which is 33 meters long and can swallow 500 thousand calories in one bite. The longest fish is whale shark, which can be as long as18.8m; The longest bony fish is a strange octopus, which can grow to 8 meters long; The heaviest bony fish is the Mola, which looks like the head of a bigger fish. It can be as long as 3.3 meters and weigh 2300 kilograms. This is heavier than the heaviest turtle (the heaviest leatherback turtle weighs 650kg) and the heaviest walrus (1883kg), but it is nothing compared with the heaviest seal (the southern elephant seal can weigh 5000kg).
These data are extremely accurate, and it took a lot of effort to get them. For example, the Australian giant snail is a large conch shaped like a sealed spherical lifebuoy. McClane saw this news in a Hawaiian shellfish news issue: A collector named Don Pisor held up a giant Australian snail with a visual length of 90cm. At the same time, he found in the world's largest shellfish file that the largest Australian snail is only 72 cm long, and its owner is Don Piersol. Are these two places talking about the same big Australian snail? Or is Don Piersol a big liar? Or is Don Piersol good at catching big sweet snails? To prove that McClane had found a customer, Don Piersol told him that it was indeed the same Australian snail, and he had donated it to the Houston Museum of Natural History. McClane contacted the museum and got an answer of 72 cm, so he confirmed an accurate data.
In the process of searching for some data, the investigation team also made new discoveries from these giant marine creatures. Andrew taylor collected data on the size of giant lice in the deep sea. He found that males are usually much larger than females. ? Although we know a lot about giant lice in the deep sea, we don't know this? McClane said.
For several giant marine animals, the investigation team was not satisfied with finding the largest size, but also used their size data to draw their size distribution map. From a scientific point of view, this is more useful. People want to know how big the biggest animal can grow, but as a result, little is known about its typical size. The known largest king squid is12m in length, but its average length is only 7.3m, and most individuals are shorter than 9.2m.. The longest recorded natural enemy of sperm whales is 24m, but 95% individuals are shorter than15m.
As McClane, who is nearly 1.9 meters tall, pointed out:? Individuals may grow very large due to developmental or genetic defects? . Robert Wadlow is the tallest man in the world. He is nearly 2.72 meters tall and needs leg support when walking. 2 1 year-old died of infection aggravated by immunodeficiency. Ceng Jinlian, the tallest woman in the world, is 2.48 meters tall. She died of pituitary tumor at the age of 17. We are all curious about extreme cases, but life is usually normal.