What is the largest living animal?

The largest animal alive is the blue whale. Fully grown, these great creatures reach a length of over 30 metres and weigh as much as twenty-four large elephants, or more than 1,500 men. The heart of a blue whale is more than a metre in diameter.

The blue whale is not a fish, even though it spends its entire life in the sea. Whales are mammals, just like us. A mother whale gives birth to a live baby whale, not an egg. She feeds her baby with her own milk. While fish are cold-blooded, whales are warm-blooded, and they have lungs and breathe air, like us.

For all its size, a blue whale feeds mainly on this shrimps. It is harmless to man. Unfortunately for the blue whales, men are not harmless to them. So many blue whales have been hunted and killed that very few of these magnificent animals are now left alive.