Weighing in at a staggering 14,000 pounds, the African elephant is the largest land animal on Earth and a living battering ram wrapped in two-inch-thick hide. Capable of flipping cars and toppling trees on a whim, its intelligence rivals that of primates—complete with mourning rituals and long-term memory. Cross one and it will remember your face forever.

Known as the killer whale despite technically being the world's largest dolphin, the orca is the ocean's most intelligent and ruthless predator. Hunting in pods with coordinated strategies that include creating waves to wash seals off ice floes, they've been observed killing great white sharks purely for their livers. The apex predator of apex predators—nothing in the sea hunts an orca.