Name: What's The Largest Thing To Ever Live On Earth? DEBUNKED
Uploaded: 2019-02-28T15:07:54.000Z
Duration: 13 min 44 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

If I were to ask you what's the largest thing
to have ever lived on planet earth, most people

would say... THE BLUE WHALE OF COURSE! But,
despite popular belief... it's not!

So, what on earth... is or should I say was?

I'm Stu, this is Debunked, and we're here
to sort the truth from the myths and the facts

Okay, so if the Blue Whale sets the benchmark
by which all other living creatures are measured,

it probably makes sense to first establish
just how BIG a Blue Whale can get?

The biggest one ever discovered was found
in the Southern Ocean of Antarctica back in

1947. it weighed in at a hefty 190 metric
tons (209.4 US TONS / 418,878 lb),

which is the equivalent to 104 standard family
SUVs. It also measured a huge 27.6 meters

(90 ft 6 in) long, close to the length of
a short haul airliner (Airbus 318)

and its estimated volume was roughly the size
of 7 fuel trucks, at 223 cubic meters (7875

What could possibly out-size something this
massive?

Well, whales first appeared around 40 million
years ago, so to find out what could possibly

it would make sense to take a look at this
prehistoric era of Earth's history,

when great monstrous-sized beasts walked the
planet,

plants were the size of VWs and colossal creatures
swam in our oceans.

So, let's start with dinosaurs... or more
accurately Titanosaurs

- a group of four legged veggiesaurus' with
long tails and small heads.

The largest of these dinosaurs to have ever
walked the Earth is believed to be the Argentinosaurus.

Its discovery in the 1990s stunned paleontologists
the world over,

with a length of 35 meters and a weight of
70 metric tons (tonnes / 70,000kg)!

Put this next to most people's common point
of dino sized reference - the T-Rex, and it

However the title was hotly contended in 2017
by the discovery of the Patagotitan mayorum.

This titanosaur was believed to have a skeleton
10% larger than the Argentinosaurus,

but recent weight estimations put it just
shy at 69 tonnes.

Both Titanosaurs maybe longer than the whale,
but put the Argentinosaurus

and the Patagotitan on a set of scales and
the pair together wouldn't out weigh our

In fact, Whales are so much larger because
they live in the ocean.

On land, animals suffer the full effect of
gravity, but for sea based organisms;

the water's buoyancy reduces the strain
on their muscles and skeletons, allowing them

When something as huge as a blue whale becomes
beached or stranded on land,

their muscles can't support their body weight
out the water and they will basically be crushed

So with the ocean providing the best environment
for a creature to super-size itself,

let's take a look in to the deep blue, and
more specifically the Cretaceous period to

see what competition there would have been...

Now anyone who's witnessed this scene before
will surely think that this prehistoric monster

offers some competition for a Blue Whale?

and THAT is a GREAT WHITE SHARK serving as
an amuse bouche.

Now, if this is your average sized Great White
then the Mosasaur would make up the length

With your average Great White measuring in
at 5.3 meters, that means the Mosasaur measures

And this is how our Blue Whale sizes up against
this leviathan!

But here's where Hollywood gets carried away
with itself…

Mosasaurs aren't believed to have grown
any longer than 18 meters,

with the largest one to have been excavated
sitting at a modest 15 meters,

meaning Jurassic World's reptile is grotesquely
inaccurate.

Anyway that's enough science fiction, let's
get back to the science fact.

What is the largest creature to have ever
swam in our oceans?, Fortunately, a discovery

Measuring in at nearly 26 meters, that's
only just short of our largest blue whale,

it's believed that this giant Ichthyosaur
may have been the largest aquatic reptile

However, with its dolphin-like shape, a long
pointy jaw and streamlined body, it's estimated

weight falls far below that of the Whale,

meaning the Blue Whale still stands as the
largest animal to have ever swam in our planet's

Let's leave the wet stuff behind now and
head back to land,

where the competition to be crowned largest
living thing is starting to hot up.

What stands taller than the largest dinosaurs
and doesn't suffer the effect of gravity

As we travel to the coast of California, we'll
find the Redwoods National Park,

Even fantasy doesn't top this living behemoth,
take a recent incarnation of Godzilla and

and it stands around 10% taller at a staggering
115.85 meters!

And if Godzilla's not your thing then take
a look at how the Statue Of Liberty sizes

Yet, height isn't everything, we're after
the largest and that doesn't necessarily

mean the tallest, so for that we need to travel
down the coast to meet General Sherman,

a 2,100 year old Giant Sequoia. He may stand
at a humble 82.6 meters (271 ft) tall by comparison,

but has a whopping volume of 1,487 cubic meters
(52,513 cubic feet),

blowing old Bluey out of the water! Because
in fact you could squeeze around 7 blue whales

When the General's root system is taken
in to account it's believed that this single

organism would weigh 1,814 tonnes (4,000,000
lb)!

And, as astounding as those stats are, there
was once a tree larger than the General

, measuring 1,727 cubic meters, but it was
sadly cut down in the 1940s.

However, even with these giants of the forest,

believe it or not we've still not found
the largest thing to have ever lived on our

To find what we're looking for, we need
to travel to the Blue Mountains Of Eastern

and here you won't find the largest living
organism towering over the forest,

swimming through the lakes or stomping around
the mountains.

Instead, we need to look below our feet. Under
the forest floor of the Malheur National Forest,

you'll find something that you may not have
expected to come out on top in this video.

While we've been looking at all the relevant
Kingdoms of Life on planet earth,

there's one we're forgetting… Fungi
(Fun-gee), OR Fungi (Fun-guy) or Fungi (Fun-jei),

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What's The Largest Thing To Ever Live On Earth? DEBUNKED

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