Ranking Each Of The 7 Continents By Their Largest Freshwater Mammal

If you're looking for some of the strangest and highly specialised mammals in the world then you can't go wrong looking in this planet's freshwaters, and you can find some real giant's lurking in the depths.
In today's video we'll be taking a look at some of the world's largest freshwater mammals, but this is quite a hard category to define.
Most mammals found in freshwaters aren't fully aquatic and spend most of their time on land, whereas others are fully aquatic but spend large parts of their lives in marine environments.
To be featured in this video the animal must spend large parts of their lives in freshwaters, and they need to rely on freshwater ecosystems in some way.
I'll be ranking the animals based on their maximum weight in the wild, and of course I won't be including invasive or introduced species.

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:50 Antarctica - No Freshwater Mammals
1:26 Oceania - Platypus
3:46 Europe - Saimaa Ringed Seal
6:04 Asia - Irrawaddy Dolphin
7:54 North America - West Indian Manatee
11:00 South America - West Indian Manatee
13:23 Africa - Hippopotamus

Attributions:
Rakali images:
Nrg800
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakali#...
CC BY-SA 3.0
Glaubradu
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
CC0 1.0
Ged Tranter
https://www.inaturalist.org/observati...
CC BY 4.0

Rakali footage:
Les Peters
   / @lespeters182  

Platypus images:
Charles J. Sharp
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
CC BY-SA 4.0

Water vole images:
Peter Trimming
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
CC BY-SA 2.0

Eurasian water vole images:
Charlie Marshall
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
CC BY 2.0

Ringed seal images:
Linda Lötjönen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saimaa_...
CC BY 4.0
Михаил Голомысов
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladoga_...
CC BY 4.0
janconl
https://www.inaturalist.org/observati...
CC BY-NC 4.0

Asian Otter images:
JJ Harrison
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
CC BY-SA 4.0
Manfred Werner - Tsui
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
CC BY-SA 3.0
Rigelus
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
CC BY-SA 4.0

Lake baikal crustacean images:
Ксения Верещагина
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

Asian river dolphin images:
Munshi Md. Abul Barakat
https://www.inaturalist.org/observati...
CC BY-NC 4.0

Irrawaddy Dolphin images:
Vatcharavee Sriprasertsil
https://www.inaturalist.org/observati...
CC BY-NC 4.0
Stefan Brending
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrawad...
CC BY-SA 3.0 DE

Capybara images:
Clodomiro Esteves Junior
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
CC BY-SA 4.0
thibaudaronson
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
CC BY-SA 4.0

Nutria range map:
M.Bitton - IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutria#...
CC BY-SA 3.0

Amazonian manatee images:
vladeb
https://www.flickr.com/photos/2812216...
CC BY-ND 3.0
Webbotwill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazoni...
CC BY-SA 4.0

African otter images:
Nick Athanas
https://www.flickr.com/photos/antpitt...
CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Marsh mongoose images:
nikosoccer1014
https://www.inaturalist.org/observati...
BY-NC 4.0
Colin Ralston
https://www.inaturalist.org/observati...
CC BY-NC 4.0

I have edited and adapted some of these clips and images.
Creative commons licences: https://creativecommons.org/share-you...

Thanks for watching i hope you enjoyed :)

Sources:
https://uk.whales.org/whales-dolphins....
https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?20208....
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/31/wo....
https://www.nature.com/articles/natur...
https://www.naturalhistorymag.com/pic...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-2...