Today it is a sand desert, but 39 million years ago the Ica Valley, in southeastern Peru, was all sea. And in that sea swam the heaviest animal on the planet. Only a few vertebrae, ribs and part of the pelvic bone have been found, but the former weigh more than 100 kilograms each and the latter measure 1.4 meters. The authors of the discovery, published in the scientific journal Nature, estimate that the complete skeleton of this whale should weigh up to three times more than that of the blue whale, the largest animal known so far. Supported by the ratio between bone mass and total mass of other species of whales, they calculate that this cetacean could have weighed up to 340 tons. Blue whales rarely exceed 150 tons. They have called the new creature Perucetus colossus, from Peru and whale (cetus, In latin). Colossus does not need to be translated.
