The World's Largest Carnivoran Is A 3,600-Kilogram Giant That Weighs More Than Your Car

Who’s the true king of the carnivorans? Lions, tigers, or bears, perhaps? Turns out there’s something else the Tin Man should’ve been afraid of – well, at least if The Wizard of Oz took place a little closer to the sea. This fearsome animal? The southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina), also known as the largest carnivoran in the world.

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But hang on, we hear you ask. Aren’t blue whales carnivores? You’d be correct; blue whales, the largest animals ever known to have lived, eat krill, which makes them carnivores. Carnivores and carnivorans, however, are actually two different things. 

The term carnivore applies to anything that feeds primarily on animal matter. Carnivorans, on the other hand, are a group of mammals that specifically belong to the biological order Carnivora, all having blade-like teeth called carnassials that are specialized to shred meat (although some do eat plants too). Blue whales don’t belong to this order – they’re part of Cetacea – but southern elephant seals do.

Now we’ve cleared that up, let’s get back to the business of just how enormous southern elephant seals are – and that’s pretty damn big. While females weigh around 900 kilograms (1,984 pounds), males, or bulls, of the species tend to measure in at around 3,600 kilograms (7,937 pounds). That’s roughly just over twice as much as a car like the Nissan Qashqai (other cars are available), or about 53 times as much as the heaviest ringed seals (Pusa hispida), one of the smallest seal species.

In fact, that’s not even the heaviest that these mammalian giants can get. According to Guinness World Records, the largest ever accurately measured elephant seal weighed in at a whopping 4,000 kilograms (8,818 pounds), and was an estimated 6.85 meters (22.5 feet) in length.

All that weight comes with danger – not just for humans, who could easily be crushed by a southern elephant seal simply flopping over to catch a bit of sun on the other side, but for their very own pups. It’s one of the reasons why young southern elephant seals have a mortality rate of 25 percent during mating season, caught up in the crossfire as the gigantic bulls blob around to ward off other males.

We say blob around, but they can move surprisingly quickly – albeit in short bursts – when needed, such as chasing away a competitor. If said angry southern elephant seal bull manages to catch up, best believe it’s not going to make for a pretty sight. All that weight plus those sharp ol’ carnassials, and you’re in for one hell of a fight.