(CN) — Researchers from Peru, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and beyond came together to discover what may be the world's largest animal: the Perucetus colossus whale.
Previously, the largest known animal in the world was the blue whale, weighing up to 180 tons and reaching 100 feet long. The blue whale's tongue alone is as heavy as an elephant. Now, the Perucetus colossus may overthrow the blue whale's claim to the heavyweight title.
In an article published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, scientists detail the gigantic, 39-million-year-old mammal using vertebrae, rib and hip bones unearthed in southern Peru. Lead study author Eli Amson, with the Museum Stuttgart, and his team believe that the Perucetus colossus could have weighed up to 340 tons, almost double the blue whale.
The Perucetus colossus' skeleton was especially heavy.
"With estimates ranging from 5.3 to 7.6 tons, the skeleton weighed 2.0–2.9 times as much as that of a 25-meter-long blue whale," the study's authors write.
The Perucetus colossus may have looked more like an impossibly humongous manatee than a whale, a conclusion drawn from the close relationship between the thickened bones of a manatee and Perucetus colossus. The whale is also thought to have had tiny fore- and hind legs — a common trait in whales during the Perucetus colossus' reign.
Amson's team used 3D scans, holotypes and references to more complete whales from the same period to create a skeletal estimation. Scientists believe the Perucetus colossus lived approximately 40 million years ago, during the Eocene epoch in Peru. During this time, temperatures rose, mammals were abundant and the first whales appeared.
The estimated size and mass of the specimen challenge researchers' idea that large whale evolution began roughly 5 million years ago. The newly discovered mammal reached peak body mass for cetacean animals, which include dolphins, whales and porpoises, around 30 million years earlier than previously thought.
The scientists believe the whale was slow moving and fed on crustaceans, mollusks and even shark carcasses. Given how much food such a large animal would have to consume, it is possible but unlikely that it fed on seagrass and seaweed, making it the first herbivore cetacean. The study's authors also note that the early whale's shallow, coastal habitat allowed smaller whales and present-day dolphin relatives to inhabit more of the open ocean.
Perucetus colossus may leave scientists with more questions than answers about its life, diet and what this mega mammal will do to shake up the cetacean evolution timeline.
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