Special Sub-Topic: Animal Extremes Click Here To Play: Animal Extremes

What type of dog breed has the record for being the heaviest as of the Guinness Book of Records 2001?

Old English Mastiff. The book records the heaviest living dog as an English Mastiff bitch which weighs in at 286 lbs. The heaviest dog ever documented was an Old English Mastiff, which reached a peak weight of 343 lbs in 1989!

What is the fastest land insect?

tropical cockroaches. Some scientists may have actually been paid to clock these turbo roaches at UC Berkeley! They found a specimen which was clocked at 3.36 mph. That may not seem so fast...but it's a cockroach!

What's the slowest fish?

sea horse. There are 30 species of sea horses. One of them, a dwarf sea horse, probably never goes much faster than 0.001 mph.

What is the greatest recorded altitude for a bird?

37,000 feet. A Ruppell's vulture collided with a commercial airliner in 1973. The jet was cruising at a lofty 37,000 feet. The vulture didn't make it, but the plane and passengers landed safely.

Which type of bird is recorded as having the longest feathers?

chicken. Yes, there is such a thing as a Yokohama chicken! A rooster owned by a breeder in Japan had a recorded tail length of 34 feet, 9 inches

Which of the following is the longest on record?

reticulated python. A reticulated python specimen was measured at 32 feet, 10 inches in Indonesia in 1912.

What is the most fertile animal?

cabbage aphid. Cabbage aphids reproduce asexually and, with unlimited food and no predators, could theoretically create an 809-million-ton mass of offspring every year! That's three times the weight of the whole human population!

Which animal makes the loudest sounds?

blue whale. Blue whales have been recorded as high as 188 decibels (a jumbo jet taking off measures around 120 decibels)

What is the most dangerous animal?

anopheles mosquito. In terms of human life lost, the anopheles mosquito, which carries the malaria parasite, has quite likely been responsible for half of all human deaths (excluding wars and accidents) since the Stone Age.

Which denizen of the sea is the animal with the biggest eyes?

giant squid. A specimen of the Atlantic giant squid was found in 1878 and determined to have eyes with a diameter of 20 inches!