Big whale discovery

Prehistoric skeleton found in Peru rivals the blue whale as the heaviest animal to have ever lived

- Stuart Blackman

AS EVERY SCHOOLCHILD KNOWS, THE blue whale is not just the biggest animal alive today, but the biggest ever to have existed. Or is it? This stalwart of zoological record-breaker lists is being challenged for its title by a remarkable fossil unearthed in Peru.

When scientists came across the 13 vertebrae, four ribs and a single pelvic bone, there was doubt as to whether they were fossils at all. "The bones are so weird, so big and so dense that they look like pieces of marble," says Eli Amson of the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart.