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
Largest prehistoric animals gruiform and largest phorusrhacid or "terror bird" (highly predatory, flightless birds of South America) was "Brontornis", which was about tall at the shoulder, could raise its head above the ground and could have weighed as much as . The immense phorushacid "Kelenken" stood tall with a skull long ( of which was beak), had the largest head of any known bird. The largest North American phorusrhacid is "Titanis", which is about tall, as tall as a forest elephant. The largest-known bird of prey ever was the enormous Haast's eagle ("Harpagornis moorei"), with a wingspan of , relatively short for their