this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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The largest animal we have known to ever live is alive right now, the blue whale.
The ocean doesn't count
In this particular case, it does. Whales are air breathing mammals.
Yes, but they spend most of their lives under water, only coming up briefly to breathe. Being under several atmospheres of pressure changes your air requirements.
Whether those requirements go up or down, I'm not sure.
I think it's a bit more complicated than that, blue whale are hyper efficient, they collapse their lungs to get all the oxygen they breath in into their blood stream, so they use the gas the breathe in many times more efficiently than a terrestrial mammal.
They also have hyper efficient heat retention, muscle use, everything. They are fully adapted for their milleaux, it's apples to oranges to compare them to a terrestrial bird/lizards that were mostly cold blooded and hollow boned.
Change your air requirements in what way? Because the requirements don't change, the supply does. And whales are a proof that an animal much bigger than a T-rex can in fact survive in current times oxygen level. Even though it lives in the fucking ocean.