Huge in Size: Enormous Creatures Discovery From Sea

Huge in Size: Enormous Creatures Discovery From Sea

The largest living things in the world call the sea their home, and in fact, the largest creature to have ever lived on the planet currently resides in the ocean. Some of these creatures remain elusive and wildly mysterious. That’s what happens when you live in a place as unexplored as the ocean. And that’s also why it has been especially difficult to nail down the size of certain sea creatures. At least it was until a group of scientific researchers embarked on a comprehensive survey and review of past studies for the largest known marine species. Here is what they found.12

of 10
Lion’s Mane Jellyfish | Total Length: 120 Feet (36.6 Meters)
An orange lion’s mane jellyfish floating with its long white tentacles extended into the water.
Alan Weir / Flickr / CC BY 2.0

While the blue whale is the overall-largest creature of the sea, the lion’s mane jellyfish goes to the top of the list for being the longest. These languid beauties have tentacles that reach an astonishing 120 feet in length.3 It’s hard to know why they are graced with such extraordinary appendages. They are said to get tangled in marine debris or with other tentacles, and as they take notably more time to contract, they are more vulnerable to predators with a taste for jellyfish arms. That said, their long main of poison-equipped tentacles makes an excellent trap for prey.