Rare Sighting of All-White Orca Whale

The rare all-white orca whale was spotted swimming with its pod. Photo by E. Lazareva / Newscom

On a summer morning in 2010, off the coast of Kamchatka in eastern Russia, scientists made a rare discovery. Photos, released earlier this week (and posted on our Retina Tumblr blog) document what may be the first verified sighting of its kind: an all-white adult orca whale.

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What were the largest species of all time? Does the Tyrannosaurus rex make the list?

Titanoboa was one gigantic snake. It lived around 58 to 60 million years ago, a scant several million years after the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. It could grow 42 feet or more in length and weigh more than a ton, vastly outslithering the previous fossil record holder, a 40-million-year-old, 33-foot-long snake called Gigantophis. But Titanoboa is just one proud inductee in the Prehistoric Giants Hall of Fame. Meet the other record-holders.

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Largest herbivorous dinosaur

Of all the dinosaur superlatives, “biggest dinosaur ever” is one of the most prized. The trouble is that we don’t really know who deserves the title. Sauropods like Apatosaurus (once known as “Brontosaurus”) and Diplodocus, both at roughly 70 feet long, seemed to be the champions during the 19th century, but since then a variety of even bigger sauropods has been found.

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