The ten longest whale species on Earth, ranked by the maximum body length NOAA Fisheries reports for each.
Quick answer: 1. Blue whale, 2. Fin whale, 3. North Pacific right whale, 4. Bowhead whale, 5. Sei whale, 6. Humpback whale, 7. Southern right whale, 8. Bryde's whale, 9. North Atlantic right whale, 10. Sperm whale.
Ranked by length rather than by bulk, the whale order looks different from the one most people carry around in their heads. The blue whale still towers over everything — no other animal that has ever lived comes close — but the sperm whale, the giant of every whaling story ever told, finishes last on this list, and the slow, round right whales that dominate the weight rankings slide down it. This list uses one consistent yardstick: the maximum length NOAA Fisheries publishes for each species. That keeps every figure comparable, which matters more than it sounds — whale sizes get quoted from whaling logs, strandings and old record books that use different standards and rarely agree.
The largest animal known to have ever existed, reaching 110 ft — longer than a Boeing 737 and heavier than 20 elephants. The longest individual ever reliably measured, a female taken in the Southern Ocean, came in at 33.58 m. It eats almost nothing but krill, up to four tonnes of it a day.
The second-longest animal on the planet at up to 85 ft, and the fastest of the great whales — nicknamed the 'greyhound of the sea' for bursts above 37 km/h. Its jaw is asymmetrically coloured, white on the right side and dark on the left, a quirk found in no other whale.
The longest of the three right whales, reaching 64 ft, and one of the rarest large animals alive — the eastern North Pacific population is estimated in the low tens. Nineteenth-century whaling removed tens of thousands of them, and illegal Soviet whaling in the 1960s finished off the recovery before it started.
An Arctic specialist up to 62 ft long, built for ice: it has the thickest blubber of any whale, up to 50 cm, and a skull strong enough to break through sea ice to breathe. Bowheads are also the longest-lived mammals known, with individuals aged past 200 years.
At up to 60 ft, the sei whale is the slenderest of the big rorquals and among the fastest, cruising at over 30 km/h. Unlike its lunge-feeding relatives it usually skims, swimming open-mouthed through slicks of copepods near the surface.
Up to about 60 ft, matching the sei whale in length but far bulkier. Its pectoral fins are the longest of any whale, up to a third of its body length, and its populations migrate farther than any other mammal — over 8,000 km each way between polar feeding grounds and tropical breeding waters.
Reaching 56 ft and up to 88 tons, this is the heaviest whale on the list relative to its length — right whales are famously rotund. It is also the recovery story of the group: while the two northern right whales remain critically depleted, the southern population has climbed back to the tens of thousands.
Up to 55 ft, and the only great whale that stays in warm water year-round rather than migrating to the poles. It is identified by three parallel ridges running along the top of its head — every other rorqual has just one.
Up to 52 ft and one of the most endangered large whales on Earth, with fewer than 400 individuals left. Vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear, not whaling, are what keep the population from recovering.
The largest toothed predator alive, with males reaching 52 ft — last on this list by length, but carrying the largest brain of any animal at up to 9 kg and diving past 2,000 m to hunt squid. Whaling-era logs claim individuals over 20 m; no modern measurement has come close.
| # | Name | Scientific name | Max length (ft) | Max weight | Group | ESA status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blue whale | Balaenoptera musculus | 110 ft | Up to 330,000 lb (165 tons) | Baleen whale | Endangered |
| 2 | Fin whale | Balaenoptera physalus | 85 ft | 40-80 tons | Baleen whale | Endangered |
| 3 | North Pacific right whale | Eubalaena japonica | 64 ft | Up to 100 tons | Baleen whale | Endangered |
| 4 | Bowhead whale | Balaena mysticetus | 62 ft | Up to 200,000 lb (100 tons) | Baleen whale | Endangered |
| 5 | Sei whale | Balaenoptera borealis | 60 ft | Up to 100,000 lb (50 tons) | Baleen whale | Endangered |
| 6 | Humpback whale | Megaptera novaeangliae | 60 ft | Up to about 40 tons | Baleen whale | Varies by population |
| 7 | Southern right whale | Eubalaena australis | 56 ft | Up to 176,000 lb (88 tons) | Baleen whale | Endangered (foreign) |
| 8 | Bryde's whale | Balaenoptera edeni | 55 ft | About 90,000 lb (45 tons) | Baleen whale | Not listed (Rice's whale endangered) |
| 9 | North Atlantic right whale | Eubalaena glacialis | 52 ft | Up to 140,000 lb (70 tons) | Baleen whale | Endangered |
| 10 | Sperm whale | Physeter macrocephalus | 52 ft (males) | 15 tons (females) to 45 tons (males) | Toothed whale | Endangered |
Species are ranked by the maximum body length reported by NOAA Fisheries in its species directory, converted from feet to metres and ordered longest to shortest (rank 1 = longest). Using a single agency for every entry keeps the comparison like-for-like; mixing sources would mean mixing standards, because whale lengths are quoted variously from whaling records, stranded carcasses and live measurements. Note that these are the top of each species' documented adult size range, not a single record-holding individual: larger one-off specimens are on record for several species — a 33.58 m blue whale taken in the Southern Ocean, sperm whales claimed near 20 m in 19th-century whaling logs — and those are mentioned in the entries but are not used to rank, because equivalent record specimens are not documented for every species. Only species commonly called whales are included; dolphins, porpoises and beaked whales are excluded. Where two species share the same NOAA maximum they are listed adjacently. The gray whale, at 49 ft (14.9 m), is the first species outside the top ten.
The blue whale, at up to 110 ft (about 33.5 m) according to NOAA Fisheries. It is not just the longest whale but the longest and heaviest animal known to have ever lived, including every dinosaur. The longest individual ever reliably measured was 33.58 m.
Because this list ranks by length, not bulk. Male sperm whales reach about 52 ft, shorter than every baleen whale above them, but they are still the largest toothed animal on Earth and outweigh the Bryde's whale that sits two places higher.
They are the top of each species' documented adult size range as published by NOAA Fisheries, not single record-breaking animals. Most adults are noticeably smaller. Record individuals do exist for some species — a 33.58 m blue whale, for instance — but comparable record measurements are not available for every species, so they are not used to rank.
Whale size figures come from very different places: industrial whaling records, stranded carcasses measured on a beach, and modern photogrammetry of live animals. Each method has its own biases, and historical records in particular were often rounded or exaggerated. This list uses NOAA Fisheries throughout so every species is measured the same way.
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