Worlds Biggest Mouth
It’s been said that everyone is created equal, but perhaps this is not quite true. If there’s one thing we can be sure of in life, it's that all things in creation are so diverse. It’s always interesting to hear of people and creatures with such unique characteristics. We’re continually fascinated with finding out which is the strongest or fastest, the tallest or shortest, or in this case, who has the world’s biggest mouth.
As of the year 2010, the world’s biggest mouth on a human being belongs to a 20 year old Angolan man named Francisco Domingo Joaquin. Nicknamed “the Angolan Jaw of Awe,” he gained widespread attention over the Internet over the past 2 years due to YouTube videos showing off the amazing capabilities of his 16.99 cm mouth. He had even entered in an Italian “Big Mouth” contest, wherein the participants were required to stuff all manner of unusual objects into their mouths. Joaquin would best all comers with his astounding feat: inserting an entire Coke can sideways into his incredibly enormous maw. Eventually, the Guinness Book of World Records would take notice of Joaquin’s unusual talent, awarding him the honor of having the largest mouth in the world.
But that’s just the biggest human mouth in the world. If one were to ask who (or what) has the world’s biggest mouth ever, the answer would have to be the biggest animal on the face of the Earth, the Blue Whale. One can only imagine how huge the mouths of these massive 108 ft (33 meters) 180 metric ton (200 short tons) creatures must be. The mouth of the Blue whale is capable of holding up to 90 tons (100 short tons) of water and food. As a matter of fact, its mouth is large enough to accommodate around 100 people inside of it. Interestingly, despite the enormity of its mouth, its throat’s dimensions actually prevent it from swallowing anything wider than a beach ball. Aside from that, the weight of its tongue is approximately 2.7 tons (3 short tons), which is about as heavy as an elephant.
The Blue whale’s diet consists of small crustaceans such as copepods and krill, and its humongous mouth is capable of swallowing millions of krill with only a single gigantic gulp. It feeds by lunging at its prey with its giant jaws wide open, guzzling up tons of water and massive quantities of krill (in the process, other small crustaceans, fish and squid are consumed as well). The water would then be pushed out through around 300 baleen plates (each measuring about 1 meter or 3.2 ft in length) hanging from their upper jaw and which serve as a filter. After all the water has been cleared from the mouth, the krill that remain will not be able to pass through the baleen plates, and are swallowed. In a single day, an adult Blue whale can consume up to 40 million krill, sometimes consuming up to 7,900 lbs (3,600 kg) of krill in one day; a big appetite for such a big mouth.
