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How likely are we to discover an extinct or even extant species that exceeds the blue whales size? I know that some sauropods have greater physical dimensions, though none of them come close to the blue whale in the mass department.
I keep reading about how the blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived, both past and present, but I find that to be a rather arrogant statement. There’s no way to come to that conclusion. Either we discover an animal that is bigger and put that to rest or we keep looking indefinitely. We will never discover all species that have ever existed.
The Diplaudicus was pretty big. I have to go look to be sure but I believe they did find a Sauropod that was a bit bigger than the blue whale. I'll have to do a search and get back.
Edit. The largest land animal ever found in the fossil record was Argentisaurus tipping at 220 thousand pounds. The Blue Whale comes in at 300 thousand. But you have to consider the problems a land animal of this size would have with gravity The whale is supported by the water and can tolerate such weight. Such weight on a land animal is simply huge. It's small wonder the critters leg bones were initially mistaken for fossilized trees.
That's incredible size. If they ever find something bigger it could be safely assumed it was (or probably would be) it will be in the ocean. Looking at the theory of an animal of such size from an evolutionary standpoint the water would be needed. The math wouldn't work otherwise. The simplest laws of physics would apply. I'm no physicist but I don't really need to be.
The ocean is the only place a creature of that size could stay hidden today as well. And it would need to be a DEEP dweller. LOL, fun to postulate on though..
Last edited by NVplumber; 05-16-2019 at 06:16 PM..
The Diplaudicus was pretty big. I have to go look to be sure but I believe they did find a Sauropod that was a bit bigger than the blue whale. I'll have to do a search and get back.
Edit. The largest land animal ever found in the fossil record was Argentisaurus tipping at 220 thousand pounds. The Blue Whale comes in at 300 thousand. But you have to consider the problems a land animal of this size would have with gravity The whale is supported by the water and can tolerate such weight. Such weight on a land animal is simply huge. It's small wonder the critters leg bones were initially mistaken for fossilized trees.
That's incredible size. If they ever find something bigger it could be safely assumed it was (or probably would be) it will be in the ocean. Looking at the theory of an animal of such size from an evolutionary standpoint the water would be needed. The math wouldn't work otherwise. The simplest laws of physics would apply. I'm no physicist but I don't really need to be.
The ocean is the only place a creature of that size could stay hidden today as well. And it would need to be a DEEP dweller. LOL, fun to postulate on though..
That’s what I figured as well. Any animal that would surpass the blue whale would most likely be a deep ocean dweller.
On top of argentinosaurus, there’s also supersaurus which may have exceeded the blue whale in length, but was still dwarfed by the latter’s mass.
How likely are we to discover an extinct or even extant species that exceeds the blue whales size? I know that some sauropods have greater physical dimensions, though none of them come close to the blue whale in the mass department.
I keep reading about how the blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived, both past and present, but I find that to be a rather arrogant statement. There’s no way to come to that conclusion. Either we discover an animal that is bigger and put that to rest or we keep looking indefinitely. We will never discover all species that have ever existed.
There are biological limits to the size animals can be. There are issues of surface area to volume and being poikilothermic that would prevent the majority of reptiles from exceeding the size of a blue whale.
There are biological limits to the size animals can be. There are issues of surface area to volume and being poikilothermic that would prevent the majority of reptiles from exceeding the size of a blue whale.
Is the general assumption that the blue whale represents the upper threshold?
Is the general assumption that the blue whale represents the upper threshold?
I would say so yes. No other critter comes close. The Blue Whale is a marvel of nature. One of the wonders of the world methinks. 300 thousand pounds of living being. There is no other living thing including other species of whale that comes close.
I watched a documentary once that had video of a pack of Orcas killing a Blue Whale. It was tough to watch. It seemed as if the Orcas were doing this just for kicks. Couldn't figure out a reason that they would do this otherwise but nature is a hard mistress.
The Blues are getting rare. The Russians and Japanese still happily harpoon them which rather rankles me. That's far worse than what those Orcas did. At least they probably had some sort of reason. As I ponder on this I find it likely that some critter or another has been found that we don't know about. Some marvel or another that wound up in a Russian or Japanese net and was just killed out of hand.
I saw another documentary that showed this massive fish (took up the whole stern off the boat) hauled up by a Russian trawler. It was some certain type of known fish but nobody knew they grew that huge. They killed it of course but it was a complete waste because it decomposed before they got it back to port. The rapid decomp had something to do with the depth the animal was hauled up from.
Who knows what the Navy may have come across pinging around at massive depths with their fancy and powerful sonar.
Well, I did a search on that huge fish. I didn't find the specific one I was talking about but I found a ton of other stuff. I put in "massive fish caught by Russian trawler" and it brought up some cool things. The crews were showing all kinds of strange fish and other weird deep see critters. As far as big went all that came up was a sea lion they hauled up (and they didn't kill it) that must have gone a full ton. VERY big for a sea lion.
Other really strange critters like arthropods with eight legs and rows of the weirdest teeth. All sorts of things. Seeing all of it just reinforces my belief that the oceans hide things that are way over our heads. They do say that we know a lot more about outer space than we do about our oceans.
I don't need any convincing to know that's a true statement.
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