The Quick 10: 10 Giant Creatures

The Internet is abuzz about the picture of the giant goldfish that recently surfaced (haven’t seen it? Check out #1 below). Real or not real, there are plenty of other mammoth versions of animals out there. From huge hares to big bovines, here are 10 larger-than-life creatures.

1. A 30-pound koi carp. A fisherman named Raphael Biagini allegedly caught this beauty while fishing in France a few months ago. The authenticity of the picture is being disputed, but Yahoo! argues that 30 pounds is hardly a record weight for this type of fish – the largest documented was nearly 90 pounds (and also came from France, by the way).

2. A 17-pound, three-foot-tall bunny. Yep, he’s real, and verified by Snopes. This not-so-little guy is named Herman, and he’s a type of hare called the German Giant.

3. Two-foot starfish.

featured these monsters when they were discovered in Antarctic waters by the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research two years ago. They squick me out a little bit, but not as much as the next one...

4. A spider the size of a human hand. I’m going to link to this one rather than post a picture, because I know there are plenty of arachnophobics out there. The link, in case you’re curious but don’t want to click, is of a spider large enough to eat a bird. In fact, it is eating a bird. It’s slightly horrifying.

5. A 770-pound stingray.

It was caught by a British fisherman last year, but he was unable to haul it in alone - it took 13 men to get this big girl out of the water. They later discovered she was pregnant.

6. A pig that weighed nearly a ton. In 2004, a pig named Ton Pig (clever, yes?) died because it was so fat. It weighed 1,986 pounds, ate about 108 pounds every day and could no longer move due to its excessive size. When it passed away, his farmer owner donated him to the Liaoning Agricultural Museum. It took 16 men to load the pig onto the back of a truck. Legend has it there was one bigger, though - Big Bill, a pig exhibited at the Chicago World Fair from 1933-1934 allegedly weighed 2,552 pounds.

7. A salamander that would be taller than some humans if it stood on its tail.

The giant salamander can reach up to 5'9". Although the species is older than the T-Rex, it's now on the endangered species list.

8. A six-and-a-half-foot-tall cow the size of a small elephant. Big Cow Chilli (that's his full name) weighs more than a ton and stands six feet, six inches tall. Unlike Ton Pig, Big Cow Chilli's owners say he doesn't seem to eat an abnormal amount and is quite lean for his size.

9. A 42-foot, 2,500-pound snake. Let's be thankful this one isn't around anymore. The fossil of this absolutely mind-blowing snake was found in a coal mine in Colombia. Scientists think the snake crushed its prey to death much like an anaconda would, except this snake would have been able to squeeze the life out of car-sized beasts. Yikes.

10. A scorpion bigger than a human. It's a good thing this guy is extinct as well, because an 8.2-foot sea scorpion makes Jaws look like a kitten. A fossil of the bug's 18-inch claw was found in Germany in 2007; scientists estimated the scorpion's total size based on that claw.