The heaviest blue whale on record is weighed
A female blue whale taken in the Southern Ocean is weighed at 190 tonnes - the heaviest individual animal ever recorded. It is a different animal from the 33.58 m length record; no single individual holds both. Both records exist only because industrial whaling put the largest animals on Earth onto a factory deck where they could be measured.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) · species · Global ocean, all major basins · not located
- Antarctic Blue Whale (B. m. intermedia) · species · Southern Ocean and adjacent temperate South Atlantic, Indian and Pacific sectors · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Largest animal; largest mammal; largest whale
The longest blue whale on record is a female measured at a South Georgia whaling station at 33.58 m; the heaviest is a separate female taken in the Southern Ocean on 20 March 1947 at 190 tonnes. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary attributed to Guinness World Records; the entries were not fetched, and the sources retrieved disagree on whether the length record dates from 1909 or c.1912 - the disagreement is preserved rather than resolved.
Guinness World Records · accessed 2026-08-08 · Partly verified
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/115537-largest-animal and https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-mammal
Recorded on Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus)
- Whaling begins at Grytviken, South Georgia
- The longest blue whale on record is measured at South Georgia
- The Antarctic blue whale catch reaches its all-time peak
- The heaviest blue whale on record is weighed
- Soviet fleets take protected whales and file false returns
- Whaling ends at South Georgia
- The IWC protects blue whales from commercial hunting
- The commercial whaling moratorium takes effect
- The energetics of blue whale lunge feeding are modelled
- Dedicated Antarctic Blue Whale Project voyages
- Blue whales are found back at South Georgia
- Baleen whale consumption is re-measured, and the krill paradox sharpens
- The only published Antarctic blue whale satellite tracks are released as data
- A capture-recapture abundance estimate for Antarctic blue whales is published
- An individual Antarctic blue whale is re-sighted at South Georgia
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- An individual Antarctic blue whale is re-sighted at South Georgia · 2026
- A capture-recapture abundance estimate for Antarctic blue whales is published · 2025
- The only published Antarctic blue whale satellite tracks are released as data · 2023
- Baleen whale consumption is re-measured, and the krill paradox sharpens · 2021-11
- Blue whales are found back at South Georgia · 2020-02
- Dedicated Antarctic Blue Whale Project voyages · 2013, 2015, 2019
- The energetics of blue whale lunge feeding are modelled · 2011
- The commercial whaling moratorium takes effect · 1986 (coastal); 1985/86 pelagic season