The Heaviest Animal in History

How do you weigh the biggest animal in Earth's history when no scale is large enough to hold her? When this giant female Antarctic blue whale was caught in 1947, she had to be weighed piece by piece in a process called "flensing."

Even chunk by chunk, the numbers were mind-boggling. Her heart alone was the size of a golf cart! Because of the massive amount of fluid lost during the weighing process, scientists believe this ocean queen actually weighed even more while she was swimming.

How Is That Even Possible?

Blue whales grow to these incredible sizes because the ocean's salt water naturally supports their immense body weight. Without gravity pulling down heavily on their bones the way it does on land, whales can grow far larger and heavier than any land dinosaur ever could!