Are elephants the biggest animal

Answer 1

They are the biggest living land animals (assuming you mean by weight). The biggest land animals ever would've been some extinct dino. The largest living animal period is the Blue Whale, and scientists claim that based on what info they have to date that is it the largest animal to have ever lived. However I think that is unlikely considering the size of previous land animals implies that animals in the ocean were even larger. The problem is it is very rare that an animal leaves fossils we can identify, and those in the ocean are far far more rare. So there could've been creatures like fish, dinosaurs, mammals, or even invertebrates that were larger. Imo there were most likely creatures that dwarfed the Blue Whale, but without remains we have no idea they even existed. An animal like todays Whale Shark could've existed when plankton was rich and before any predators large enough to be a threat existed. A cold blooded animal like that existing as a plankton processing plant to increase body mass could easily grow to unimaginable size and length, even giving birth to offspring that are larger than a Blue Whale. It may even be possible that creatures exceeded a mile or even ten in length. A worn like invertebrate could grow to that size as long as predators, parasites etc didn't exist and food was plentiful. Those are the reasons animals are limited in size today, but when life first started out there were probably many more body types that could exist without being hindered by others, including animals that entirely different than exist today and have left no ancestors. Possibly something as different as an insect is from a mammal, yet has gone extinct and left no clues.

Answer 2

No, the biggest animal is the blue whale. However, the African bush elephant is the biggest terrestrial (land) animal.