Nonfiction

Think Big… and Bigger

What is the biggest wild hog in the world? It’s the giant forest hog. It can weigh up to 600 pounds! There are lots of mammals that are bigger than hogs. In fact, the giant forest hog is actually tiny compared to the largest mammal, the blue whale. It weighs about 170 tons or nearly 340,000 pounds. That is equal to almost 600 giant forest hogs!

In fact, everything about the blue whale is big. Inside the blue whale is the world’s largest heart, weighing 1,500 pounds. That’s about the size of a small car!

The blue whale has a big appetite. Each day, it can eat 40 million krill, a tiny shrimp-like shellfish. Even a baby whale, called a calf, has a big appetite. It can drink up to 65 gallons of its mother’s milk a day.

The blue whale also has a big voice that carries for hundreds of miles through the ocean water. It talks to other whales by making sounds that are louder than a jet plane.

When we think of large mammals, the giant forest hog is big, but the blue whale is even bigger!