James E. Cook, age 13, of Pittsburgh, Penna., for his question:

What is the largest meat‑eating animal?

Among all the sizeable animals, the meat eaters are in the minority. The largest land animal is the elephant, and he is a strict vegetarian. The giraffe, the tallest animal, lives on tender acacia leaves. The clumsy hippo, with the biggest mouth in the world, also eats no meat and even the bad‑tempered rhino, always ready to charge and bring down a foe, is also a vegetarian.

Even the large animals on a farm do not eat moat. The horse and the cow, as well as the smaller sheep and goat, are vegetarians. The largest meat eating farm animal is the pig. He will eat almost anything along with his mush, including scraps of meat. However, he can get along very well on plant food.

In the wilds, the meat eating animals help to keep down the population of the plant eaters. Otherwise the grazers and browsers would become so plentiful that the world would be stripped bare of vegetation. The meat eaters, or carnivores, must be fast enough ‑to catch their victims and strong enough to bring them down. They must also have teeth for tearing flesh, Most carnivores have fangs and also claws. These features bring to mind the big cats, the lion and the tiger. Over the land areas of Asia and Africa these fellows are the biggest of the carnivores. But there are far bigger carnivores who live in, or half in and half out of the water.

The biggest and most cruel meat eater of Africa is a reptile, the crocodile. This toothy fellow may weigh a ton, which is as much as two big lions. Another monster reptile meat eater is the monster lizard. The ten foot long Komodo Dragon is one of these fellows and he can swallow half a pig in one bite.

It is no easy matter to put a large carnivore on the scales, especially if he is alive and hungry. So we cannot be absolutely certain whether the heavyweight title in this field belongs to the crocodile of the Nile or to a certain fellow who lives up in the frozen north ‑ the polar bear. Certainly the polar bear is the largest of the fur‑coated carnivores. The Alaskan brown bear is larger, but he takes vegetables with his meat.

So far we have listed the land carnivores and those that spend part time in the water. But in the ocean, meat eating is the rule rather than the exception. Most fish feed on smaller fish. The biggest fish is the whale shark, a 60‑foot monster weighing ton or eleven tons. He is bigger by far than any land dwelling carnivore.

The biggest of all sea dwellers is the blue whale, the biggest animal in the world. He may weigh 100 tons. He dines, however, on plankton, which may include a few shrimp and fish eggs. So we can hardly call him a carnivore. The toothy sperm whale, however, eats squid and fish of all sorts. He may tip the scales at 40 tons, so we must rate this fellow Champ of the Carnivores.