The ocean is vast and beautiful. A lot of creatures (living organisms) call the sea home. From time immemorial, scientists have been studying the wonders of the sea and even with the latest advancement in technology available today, they still haven’t been able to uncover 1/3rd of the marine life living in the ocean.
If the largest living creature on the land is the African Bush Elephant, what then is the largest living creature in the Ocean? Are they creatures larger than elephants in the Ocean? If they are, how big are they? In this blog post, you’ll discover some of the biggest sea creatures living in the Ocean.
Are there massively sized creatures living in the Ocean?
Yes! There are. The ocean is so big and all kinds of creatures live in it (both big and small). In this section, you’ll find some of the biggest creatures that call the vast Ocean home.
1. Lion’s Mane Jellyfish
The Lion’s Mane Jellyfish holds the title of being the longest in the Ocean. This Jellyfish has tentacles that reach a total length of 120 ft (i.e., 36.6 metres). It’s not certain yet why these beautiful languid beauties are graced with extraordinary appendages. Its tentacles are so long that they sometimes get tangled with other tentacles or marine debris while they move. The tentacles take a long time to contract which makes them vulnerable to other sea creatures with a hunger for Jellyfish arms.
2. Blue Whale
Wondering why the Blue Whale was placed second? In terms of length, the Lion’s Mane Jellyfish is longer than the Blue Whale; the Blue Whale has a total length of 108.27 ft (i.e., 33 metres). However, the Blue Whale remains the largest creature on the planet; compared to Elephants (the largest animal on land), the Blue Whale weighs an equivalent to 25 adult Elephants. They can weigh up to 441,000 pounds, have hearts the size of a car, and their heartbeat can be detected two miles away.
Despite being the largest sea creature in the ocean, the Blue Whale is not free from White Shark attacks or attacks from other predators living in the ocean. There even have been cases or sightings of a Blue Whale bitten in half and washed ashore in California and South Africa.
3. Sperms Whale
The Sperm Whale is another massively sized sea creature with a total length of 78.74 ft (i.e., 24 metres). The Sperm Whale is currently the largest of the toothed whale and doubles as the largest toothed predator. To fully get a grasp of how big the Sperm Whale is, you can say that if it’s placed on its end and kept in a street, it’d be as tall as an eight-story building.
The Sperm Whale make clicking calls that can be as loud as 230 decibels underwater which is equivalent to 170 decibels on land—the same as the loudness of a rifle shot within a few feet from one’s ear or the sound made from a rocket lift-off. Additionally, this creature has the largest brain, tipping the scales at 20 pounds.