You even wonder why people , plants and animals only reach a certain height, well the answer to that question is straightforward, most of the earth’s inhabitants can’t grow to tall because of the pull of gravity. For example if you were to double in size you’d become eight times heavier and the force of gravity will crush you, yet some life-forms manage to find a loophole in this gravitational law, growing tall and proud.
let’s have a look at some of the giants living on our planet :
#1 : Plants
As you’ve probably noticed the tallest life forms on our planet are trees, it makes perfect sense, trees pretty much have one goal in life : To spend all their energy on growing taller than their neighbors, and that’s because in the tree world, that taller you are the more sunlight you get and sunlight is like food for plants, so that means a longer life but even among trees there are several giants that put the rest to shame , the tallest of them are “ redwoods AKA sequoia sempervirens “, the record holder among these california natives is a tree with its own name : “ Hyperion “ , Discovered in 2006 this guy is so massive that you can’t even see the top.
The second-place medal for the world’s tallest tree species goes to the Australian Mountain-Ash, known in the scientific community as ” Eucalyptus regnans “.
But if one day you’d like to see these monumental trees for yourself, you might not be able to, their location is kept secret and that’s because unfortunately cases of vandalism aren’t as wear as you’d think. The second place medal for the world’s tallest tree species goes to the australian mountain ash known in the scientific community as eucalyptus ramon’s.
some experts are convinced that if people didn’t cut them down these trees would grow even taller as for the champ among them goes to a tree named ” centurion “. This australian native is whopping (327.5 feet tall ) This tree is so famous and has its own facebook page.
#2 : Animals
While Trees just spend their energy basically sunbathing all the time, Animals have a little bit more to do, they need energy to walk, breed, hunt, feed, and stay warm, but that doesn’t mean they can’t go tall as well, ” Africain bush elephants “ often reach a shoulder height of 13 feet they pay for being so tall with their ceight which can get as heavy as seven tons, imagine having to carry all that around.
But the tallest living animal on the earth os ” the giraffe ” whose leg alone is taller than the average human, males grow up to 18 feet and females are a bit shorter at around 14 feet tall, ” Calves ” baby giraffes are called that too are an incredible 6 feet tall at birth and grow half an inch or more a day.
but let’s have a look at the longest creatures as well, Perhaps if we could position them vertically, they beat tje giraffes record ??!
” The saltwater crocodile “ the larget of all reptiles definitely could, it can grow almost 20 feet long, and if the brown bear stands on its hind legs its height can reach 10 to 13 feet, sure it doesn’t compete with the giraffe but this bear would give the african bush elephant a run for its money height wise of course, and when we dive into the oceans things get really interesting .
Sine gravity doesn’t prevent sea screatures from growing big and mighty, they can get utterly massive, take ” the blue whale “ for instance, it can reach a length of almost a 100 feet . This makes the blue whale the biggest creature on our planet today, large and in charge.
But there’s one sea creature that gives the blue whale some competition in the length department and that’s ” the lion’s mane jellyfish ” , it has a relatively small body but its tentacles brace yourselves folks, scientists have recorded some of these gigantic jelies with up to 1200 tentacles that grow as long as 120 feet, thanks to its record-breaking appendages , the lion’s mane jellyfish is the longest creature on the planet .
#3 : Prehistoric animals
This all sounds cool and impressive but no modern creature can hold a candle to the monsters of prehistoric times, if we took all the animals have ever existed on this planet both past and present, the top 10 places on the list of the tallest life-forms ever , would belong to ” dinosaurs ” as for the tallest of these giant reptiles that would be the ” sauropods ” , they had a body structure like no other with front legs that were longer than the back ones, they also had incredibly long necks that allowed them to reach the tops of the tallest trees, the tallest member of this already tall family whas the “sauroposeidon” , fossil records show that its height could reach 60 feet.
#4 : Humans
So what about us, where the humans stand on on this list of earth’s tallest beings?
well we’ve got nothing on prehistoric or sea life, but we are actually taller than 87,6% of all the world’s mammals.
The country that produces the tallest people on the planet is ” the netherlands ” , the average height of both men and women is fix foot three, ” montenegro “ takes second place with an average height of six foot one among its population. But of course the human race also has its own outstanding record breakers, for example : “ John Rogan “,Born in 1868, he towered at 8 foot 9 inches tall. There’s also ” Robert Wadlow “, who is still the reigning champ of the tallest people ever to have lived. His nickname was “The Giant of Illinois” and he stood at 8 foot 11 inches.