Animal including salt water, hydrothermal vents, fresh water, hot springs, swamps, forests, pastures, deserts, air, and the interiors of animals, plants, fungi and rocks. Animals are however not particularly heat tolerant; very few of them can survive at constant temperatures above . Only very few species of animals (mostly nematodes) inhabit the most extreme cold deserts of continental Antarctica. The blue whale ("Balaenoptera musculus") is the largest animal that has ever lived, weighing up to 190 metric tonnes and measuring up to long. The largest extant terrestrial animal is the African bush elephant ("Loxodonta africana"), weighing up to 12.25 tonnes and
The Animal Years of America], but [instead] it all came out sounding like a love song." Ritter has said that the life and work of Mark Twain were a great influence on "The Animal Years", in particular Twain's books "Life on the Mississippi" and "Letters from the Earth". When analyzed alongside Twain's biography, lyrics from multiple songs on "The Animal Years" seem to make textual reference to the life and times of Mark Twain. The most intriguing example may be the enigmatic song "Monster Ballads," which contains references to both the 19th-century decline of the Mississippi River steamboat at the hands of the