Some animals are simply big bonkers, packing on the pounds like there’s no tomorrow. And we mean really big! Some of the fattest animals in the world weigh more than 200 pounds, and they’re definitely not your average couch potatoes. In fact, some of these beasts can even qualify as dangerous predators, warranting their spot on this list of the fattest animals in the world.
From giant pandas to lions, these are some of the biggest and heaviest animals on Earth. But which ones are the fattest? To find out, we turned to scientific data to determine which creatures pack on the most body fat. And trust us when we say that some of these contenders are seriously impressive!
1 Obie The Dachshund
The Dachshunds are one of the cutest breeds of dogs. The breed doesn’t know its limit and will continue to eat as long as there is food around. Some of these dogs can get chubby and their stomachs might even drag on the ground when they walk.
Dachshunds have very short legs and delicate spines, which is why being overweight can cause severe health conditions. Obie is the fattest known dachshund. His owners were an elderly couple and due to mobility issues, they weren’t able to take Obie for walks. They showed him affection by giving him treats, which led him to be 77 pounds. This is three times the size he should have been. Obie was so fat that he could barely move around, so his owners decided to give him up for adoption for his own good. His new owners set up a Go fund me campaign to raise money for his care. They put him on a rigorous diet and exercise regime.
When Obie started to lose weight, he needed surgery to remove the excess skin. Today he is down to a healthy weight and he looks and feels great.
2 Rocky The Red, Goldfish
Goldfish are the easiest fish to care for. Most people start their aquarium with goldfish because they don’t require a lot of work. The problem with goldfish is that they continue to grow and can therefore get very fat. There is an illness called dropsy that goldfish can get and it causes them to look swollen, like they’re going to explode.
If you’re thinking how cool it might be to own the world’s fattest goldfish, then you’re going to need a big bowl and an even bigger bank balance. Rocky the red, aranda fish, measures six inches in length and weighs in at 2 pounds 10 ounces, about as much as a bag of sugar.
Rocky, who is female, is not only enormous, but also rare and valuable, causing her British owner to put a price tag of £4500. That’s around $5,500 on her for any potential buyers. This particular species of goldfish, which is native to China and Japan, is sought after by collectors, and with Rocky being a heavyweight champion, that only increases her value.
Goldfish will continue eating even if they are full. This is why it is essential to give them just small amounts of food each day, as overfeeding can cause fat to hang over the fish’s eyes and they can start to swim upside down because their bladders don’t function properly.
3 Uncle Fatty
While the moniker may come off as a little harsh, the truth is, Uncle Fatty certainly lives up to his namesake. For those that call the picturesque shorelines of Bangkok their home, the familiar sight of this astonishingly overweight monkey is an everyday occurrence.
Dubbed Uncle Fatty by locals, this ever hungry primate is actually a long tailed macaque, a species of monkey that is a regular recurrence throughout the city streets of Thailand while he began his larger than life legend as just a regular old, greedy monkey, over the years, Uncle Fatty gained a reputation for hoarding food that had been stolen from passing tourists.
He became so adept at stealing people’s lunch that in the end, many locals would throw piles of food at them to keep them busy. But by the time he piled on the pounds, that’s when the local authorities caught word of a larger than life macaque. Usually, these small monkeys weigh around 22 pounds, but Uncle Fatty weighs a whopping 59 and a half pounds.
4 Udel The Orangutan
Living on a healthy diet of fruit, Udel the fattest orangutan has been tipping the scales for several years now and although he measures just 3ft 11 inches tall, he weighs a whopping 22 pounds of weight. However, experts aren’t entirely sure why this guy has such a habit of piling on the pounds. And according to his keepers at Ranganang Zoo in Jakarta Yu Dale, the orangutan survives on a healthy diet of fresh fruit and milk just like the rest of his monkey friends.
At first, keepers at the zoo assumed that Udel was growing too fat after visitors had been sneaking him snacks or food through the enclosure. But after keeping an intense eye on him for months, they found that that wasn’t the case. While he’s a pretty bulky guy, Udel is still incredibly active, and he’s entirely capable of swinging and climbing like his other primate friends and of course, he’s happy.
5 Fat Tiger
Fat Tigers in Chinese Zoo while this next entry may seem like a bit of a joke on the surface, in all honesty, it’s no laughing matter. Back in 2017, several photographs of a group of overweight Siberian tigers were snapped in Harbor City, China, where these porky predators appeared to have piled on pounds to an unhealthy size.
At first, it was suggested that the Siberian tigers had been overeating in preparation of the harsh winters in northern China, where the area often experiences lows of negative 4 degrees F throughout the winter months and potentially dipping even lower in February and March. After the photographs caused a stir of controversy, the park keepers released a statement saying that it was perfectly normal for these animals to be so overweight. They would have done the same thing out in the wild, where they’d have shed excess weight by springtime.
6 Otis The Bear
All right, from one cruel tale of captivity to a celebration of the weird and wonderful wilderness, meet Otis the Fattest of the Fat Bears, a colossal Alaskan brown who had been deemed the happiest bear in the world for his unrivaled efficiency of feasting throughout Alaska’s Cathy National Park.
Like some medieval king touring his kingdom, on the surface, Otis is a 24 year old bear with blondish brown hair, a straight, narrow nose and deep scars running across his neck and eye. He looks every bit the picture of an adult male brown bear but Otis is also incredibly, incredibly fat. So fat, in fact, that Otis has been crowned the King of Alaska’s Fat Bear Week pretty much every week. Since the competition started back in 2014, which was implemented as a fun way to teach locals and tourists about Earth, sign health and the habits of brown bears throughout the spring and summer seasons.
As the bears pile on the pounds for hibernation roughly around August, the bulk of the Earth sign will begin to slow things down and head deep into the wild to find a safe place to hibernate. However, this is when Otis usually shines and he’ll be the only bear still triggering bear camps across Alaska’s Katmai National Park, where he’ll happily be feasting on rivers of Alaskan salmon.
7 Patrick The Wombat
Patrick the Wombat, an incredible animal who captured the hearts and minds of Australian animal lovers after his mother was hit by a car back in 1987, where he was then found and raised by a local family, the Parkers. Sadly, Patrick the Wombat passed away back in 2017, but his legacy is still heralded as one of the most incredible wombat lives ever lived. Believe it or not but after reaching a staggering 31 years of age, Patrick became the oldest known bare nosed wombat in history and he exceeds his normal life expectancy by more than a decade. Maybe his diet had something to do with it, because if we’re looking for a, well lived, wombat, Patrick was definitely the guy for most of his life.
Patrick the Wombat was raised at Ballarat Wildlife Park in Victoria, Australia, where he became notorious for his appearance in a distinctive blue whale barrel that his keepers would wheel him out in when people paid him a visit. Weighing in at over 88 (40 kg) pounds, it’s safe to say that Patrick wasn’t exactly cut out for the wild. But his unique lifestyle led him to become not only the oldest wombat in recorded history, but also the heaviest.
8 Sultan The Whiskey Drinking Bull
Sultan The Whiskey Drinking Bull, In order to keep this champion bull in a happy state, his owner often feeds him some of the most expensive Scotch that money can buy, as well as chowing down on pretty much anything and everything he can get his hooves on.
Sultan, India’s largest, fattest and most valuable bull and while weighing in at over 2645 pounds he’s pretty much worth his weight in gold, believe it or not but Sultan is reputed to be worth over $3 million and as the father of over 2000 calves, he’s made his owner a pretty rich man in the process. However, all isn’t exactly as it may seem, as Sultan is actually a breed of water buffalo known as Amura, which are primarily kept for milk production in the Punjab and Haryana states of India, standing at 5ft 11 inches tall and measuring a staggering 14ft in length, Sultan is an incredibly intimidating figure in the world of buffaloes.
9 Fat British Squirrel
When it comes to hoarding away supplies for the winter and getting as fat as possible, squirrels are pretty dang efficient at piling on the pounds. However, for one squirrel in the United Kingdom, the art of burying nuts and stockpiling for the colder months seems to have been forgotten and instead. The Fat British Squirrel must have eaten the whole lot. Back in January of this year, one wildlife photographer had the shock of his life after capturing the remarkably rotund squirrel chomping on a nut as he lounged on a tree branch.
Although the photographer was pretty familiar with the sizing of the local wildlife, he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw this little guy claiming that it was the largest squirrel that he’d ever seen while gray squirrels don’t actually hibernate during the winter, they’re known to eat their entire body weight worth of food in a single week during autumn.
10 Sprinkles Cat
Here comes the chunk while fat cats are often seen as the butt of the mean, this 32 pound chunkster is certainly no laughing matter. At 4 years old, there is definitely no denying the fact that Sprinkles is one fat feline. And after weighing in at over three times the average weight of a domesticated house cat, it seemed that it wasn’t just an overactive appetite that had resulted in Sprinkles becoming so seriously overweight.
Sprinkles, who lives at a housing shelter for cats in New Jersey, was rescued as a youngster after being found living alone in a foreclosed house. Sadly, it seemed that Sprinkles former owners had no idea how to care for the cat, as she was in seriously poor condition, facing debilitating health conditions due to neglect. However, after being rescued, sprinkles was put on an intense dietary and exercise program, and in less than half a year, her life was pretty much transformed for the better.
11 Deep Blue Shark
The truth is, when we think of an overweight animal, sharks are probably at the bottom of that list. However, some sharks are larger than life purely for their ability to mercilessly hunt pretty much every other creature in the ocean while Stephen Spielberg’s jaws may have convinced us that the 20 foot sharks are swimming somewhere in the deep blue sea, the closest that will ever get to that terrifying reality is this colossal creature.
Deep blue, the world’s largest great white shark that has captured both the fears and imaginations of marine biologists ever since it was first spotted off the coast of Mexico. Back in 2013 estimated to be over 20ft long and still possibly growing, deep blue is widely considered to be among the largest great white sharks ever caught on camera, and probably the closest that will ever come to a real life terror of the deep.
Believe it or not, but many marine biologists estimate that deep blue could be more than 50 years old. Most recently, in 2019, deep blue came into the spotlight once more when she was captured by a national geographic documentary crew as she feasted on a whale carcass off the coast of hawaii. She’s huge. We’re going to need a bigger boat.
12 Arbuckle Hedgehog
The truth is, when we think of the hedgehog, we can’t help but think of a small, sweet woodland creature, right cute and spiky. In the summer of 2018, an overweight hedgehog made headlines after showing up at a rescue center in Aberdeenshire, UK, tipping the scales at £5, roughly four times the size of an average hedgehog.
The heavy hedgehog named Arbuckle was reported to be the size of a World Cup football, and he could barely walk. When he arrived at the new home, staff at the rescue center put buckle on a new diet and placed his food at different points in his habitat so that he had to exercise in between bites. Kind of like the equivalent of walking from your bedroom to your fridge to chow down on some midnight snacks. Even if this spiky little guy may have let himself go a little bit, he’s still pretty darn cute.
13 Garfield The Cat
Garfield the Cat domesticated pets live differently than animals in the wild. Animals in the wild hunt for their food and eat whenever they can. Most domestic pets, however, have owners who watch over what they eat, making sure they don’t overdo it. Garfield’s owner died in 2012 and he was taken to North Shore Animals League of America in Long Island, New York. When Garfield arrived at the shelter, she was huge.
The staff had to put her on a giant scale, where they discovered that she weighed a staggering 38 pounds. This was the heaviest cat they had ever seen. When Garfield’s owner was alive, she lived a very luxurious lifestyle. She was fed only the finest foods in enormous quantities. The staff at the shelter knew that Garfield’s weight was dangerous and unhealthy, and they put her on a strict diet.
The goal was for her to lose between 15 and 20 pounds, which was half his body weight.
14 Oshine The Orangutan
Oshine, The Orangutan are very close to humans physically and genetically, which is why they gain weight similar to the way that humans do. Obesity is a problem for orangutans that live in captivity, and Oshine the orangutan is a perfect example of this.
Oshine was taken from the wild when he was very young and spent several years in a safari park in Indonesia. Later, Oshine was adopted by a family in South Africa, and they treated him like their very own child. They dressed him up in clothes and fed him candy and other processed foods. It wasn’t long before he started putting on a lot of weight.
Soon he started walking upright because he hadn’t been around his own kind for quite a while, He was adapting to human life, which included unhealthy behavior. In 2010, Oshine was taken to Monkey World in the UK, which is a sanctuary dedicated to looking after rescue primates. Since getting to Monkey World, Oshine was put on a strict diet to help him lose weight. Getting Oshine to a healthy weight is going to be a long process.
15 Bear 747
Bear 747 – if you ever visit the Brooks River in the Katmai National Park, there is a chance that you could see the bear. There are plenty of grizzly bears in the area, but 747 is the most famous. He was named after the seven four seven jumbo jet. Due to his size, he is so big that his stomach drags on the ground when he walks and he is often seen eating large amounts of food.
In 2018, 747 was spotted eating 15 whole salmon in one sitting, which is the equivalent to 670 calories. It is normal for bears to be heavier during the summer to be sure that they have enough body fat to get them through hibernation. 747 has taken this to the extreme and due to his size, he is the dominant bear along the river.
Those who have observed 747 in the wild, say that 747 is about one and a half times the size of an average bear. Experts believe that 747 is the largest grizzly in the world.
16 Cassie The Border Collie
Cassie the Border Collie anyone who has ever owned a dog knows they love to eat. They will eat anything that they are given. If you give a dog too much to eat, they’re going to pack on the pounds. Cassie, the Border Collie, is an extreme example of this. Her owners allowed her to dine on takeout, roast dinners and chocolate. By the time, Cassie was seven years old, she had spent most of her life eating human food. Unfortunately, this came at a price.
Cassie weighed around 126 pounds and started experiencing severe health complications. When Cassie’s elderly owner could no longer take care of him, He was taken in by a canine care trust and it took three people just to lift him up.
He was put on a strict diet of only two bowls of dry dog food per day. In just six months, He lost half of his body weight.
17 Darius The Rabbit
Darius the Rabbit different breeds of rabbits grow to be different sizes. The biggest rabbit in the world is named Darius. He is 4ft four inches long and he weighs 49 pounds. Taking care of such a giant rabbit isn’t easy. Darius’s family has another rabbit that is almost the same size, and they say that it costs around $7,000 a year to feed them.
This includes 2000 carrots and 700 apples each year. Each day, the rabbits were given rabbit food. They also eat a bale of hay every week. Fortunately, it isn’t unhealthy for these rabbits to grow so big. Rabbits have a time window that they are able to grow, and if they eat sensibly, they will stay that same size for the rest of their lives.
18 Kookaburra
The kookaburra is a species of tree kingfisher and is native to Australia and New Guinea. These birds spend most of their time eating insects and can grow to be 17 inches long. Their average weight is around 10.5 ounces. The Kookaburras body isn’t designed to overeat and when they do, they can develop serious problems. In 2017, Kookaburra was noted as being twice the size of an average one.
The bird flew onto a person’s balcony and it was so large that it couldn’t fly back to the wild to return the bird. The homeowner had to take it down the elevator. Experts say that many kookaburras are overweight today due to the availability of waste food around human communities. If people don’t watch what they leave out, overweight kookaburras will become the norm.
19 Neville The Pixie Frog
American bullfrogs are also known as Pixie frogs. Despite their names, they’re often found in Africa. Living in dry savannas and shrub-lands. Frogs that are kept in captivity usually weigh more than those who are living in the wild.
Frogs in the wild will gather all the food they can. Just in case food isn’t available in captivity they will do the same thing. Even though there is always food available, this can result in being overweight. On average, these frogs can weigh up to 3 pounds but in a tank they can grow to be 4 or 5 pounds. In captivity. These frogs don’t need to hunt for food because of this they may barely get any exercise. Eventually they can start to look like big green balls just sitting in the tank.
20 The 27-Million Year Old Kairuku Penguin
You might be aware that penguins have to be plump in order to survive the climates of the places where they live, but the truth is that penguins used to be much bigger, and fatter, than you ever imagined. Thanks to fossils that we have found, we now know that there was once a penguin that stood almost 6.5 (2 m) feet tall and weighed over 250 pounds (115 kg)! It might be cute to some, but downright scary to others.
21 Dave Pony
This pony, named Dave, was discovered by a wild horse welfare field officer in a field in Buckinghamshire, England. The officer described the five year old pony as the fattest she had ever seen. In fact, Dave was so overweight, he was suffering from an inflammation in his hooves and could barely move due to the pain. Abandoned in a paddock far too large for him, Dave had been left to gorge on the abundant grass, which the hungry pony filled up on constantly until he became dangerously overweight. Attempts to locate the owner amounted to nothing, and so Dave was taken into care by Britain’s Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty To Animals and the long process of trying to tackle Dave’s obesity began.
The pony was so fat, they had difficulty in finding a headpiece that would fit around his neck, making training him into new habits even more difficult but with time and patience and a strict diet mixed with plenty of exercise, Dave began to shed the pounds and a lot of them, too. Almost £200 were shed over the course of a year, and Dave soon found himself completely transformed into a much happier and healthier pony than ever before.
22 Elephant Seal
Here’s one species that absolutely revels in gluttony: the elephant seal. Female elephant seals, after giving birth, have a strict seafood diet. That is, as soon as they see food, they eat it. These sea mammals go crazy, piling on the pounds when they are out at sea building up blubber reserves. This means the fat content in their bodies is a massive 40%.
The seals spend 10 months of their lives at sea, only coming back to land to breed and give birth to their young, a period during which they more or less must starve and live off their fat reserves. So once back in the water, the feast begins and it’s not just storage.
The extra fat actually helps the seals become more poignant, meaning they spend less energy swimming and can hunt better and so get even fatter faster. These seals are named for the elephant-like nose they have, but it might just as easily have been inspired by their enormous appetite and massive girth. And they truly are massive, with the biggest weighing in at a huge £4500 once their 10 months of non stop gorging ends.
23 Maybelle The Pig
Pigs aren’t picky eaters. Healthy pigs have a few rolls of fat on their bodies but Maybelle the pig from Boston, has a lot more than just a few rolls. She is a pot belly pig who is overfed her entire life when animal rescue officers took her from her owner’s house, she weighed a staggering 196 pounds. This is twice the amount that she should weigh.
Maybelle was so fat that rolls of fat covered her eyes so she couldn’t see. Also, Maybelle was too heavy to stand up because she couldn’t get around. Maybelle became very depressed. When the officials came to get Maybelle, they needed a blackboard to lift her. The team brought her to a local farm where she was put on a sensible diet. Soon, Maybelle started to lose weight.
Maybelle wasn’t the only animal that her former owner mistreated and the other animals were also removed from her home and cared for. The authorities are working hard so that the owner cannot take care of any animals ever again.
24 Knicker Cow
Cow out in Australia, one enormous cow called Knickers has become something of a celebrity. Daniel is six foot four at the Wizards, which is right here. This cow, who is, technically speaking, not a cow, but a steer, stands a massive 6.4 feet at the shoulder, weighing in at a belt busting 2800 pounds. Normally, Knicker’s fate would have been the slaughter house, but his huge frame has led him to become a kind of national hero, going viral on the Internet.
Nicker’s own Giov Pearson says he has received calls from all over the world, with news agencies scrambling to get the down low on this high up steer. Luckily for Knickers, it was decided that he was simply too big for the slaughterhouse and it remains a mystery how exactly he was able to grow to this massive size. Let’s hope it wasn’t down to eating too many hamburgers.
This record breaking cow now just gets to hang out in the field with his fellow bovines and can live out his natural life. And they say being overweight is bad for your health. In Nickel’s case, that extra blubber has been a lifesaver.