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. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

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. Carnivor es and carnivor ans , however, are actually two different things.

The term carnivore applies to anything that feeds primarily on animal matter. Carnivorans

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