How long is the largest animal intestine?

How long is the largest animal intestine?

You won’t expect how far-reaching some animals’ digestive tract is.


Asked by: Harry Burke, Leominster

It’s a fairly close contest between the sperm whale and the blue whale. For most whale and dolphin species, the length of their intestines works out as: (body length0.762) x 17.02. That comes to more than 150m of intestine in the case of a large sperm whale and possibly as much as 220m for a blue whale. While this sounds enormous, it’s actually only seven or eight times the whale’s body length. In contrast, a cow has intestines that are 20 times as long as its body – that’s 40m for a 2m-long cow!

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