RE: the longest animal?

[Nathan Myhrvold <nathanm@MICROSOFT.com>]

The longest inverterbrate is likely to be a Portugese Man 'O War jellyfish
(Physalia physalis and P. utriculus) which has tenticles up to 50 meters
long.
Nathan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. [SMTP:th81@umail.umd.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, March 19, 1998 5:58 AM
> To:   veselinka.stanisavac@siol.net
> Cc:   dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject:      Re: the longest animal?
> 
> At 10:24 AM 3/18/98 +0100, Berislav Krzic wrote:
> >
> >A bit of trivia question to spice up the list: Does anybody know which
> was/is the longest animal ever? 
> 
> The largest vertebrate for which we have complete material would be a blue
> whale.  A complete adult Seismosaurus or Supersaurus (if such are ever
> found) would almost certainly be longer.
> 
> As for invertebrates?  Hmmm... Architeuthis (giant squid) is the most
> massive invertebrate known, but is there some other form which is even
> longer?  Don't know... (Giant polychaetes?).
> 
> Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
> Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
> Dept. of Geology              Email:th81@umail.umd.edu
> University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
> College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661