ODDITIES GALORE

10 Astonishingly Weird Guinness Records You Won't Believe Are Real

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From the strangely amusing to the downright absurd, the Guinness World Records are home to some of the most peculiar er… achievements known to humankind. Going through this list, you might find yourself wondering, why would anyone bother to make a world record out of this?

Well, we don’t know either, but we are thankful someone has taken the time to document all these 10 wonderfully weird instances of human creativity.

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Donald Gorske, a man from Wisconsin, has consumed over 30,000 Big Macs in his lifetime, earning him the record for the most Big Macs consumed. His daily habit of eating two Big Macs has become a legendary feat, and he still claims to look forward to eating them every day.

Credit: Andrew Wulf

Charlotte Lee, a woman from Seattle, has amassed an extraordinary collection of over 9,000 rubber ducks. Her fascination with the cheerfully yellow bath toys has led her to scour the globe in search of unique and rare additions to her impressive collection, being eventually inducted into the Guinness World Records for her ever-growing collection.

Credit: Jason Yoder

Ever stared at your own navel for too long? For Graham Barker, an Australian librarian, this habit became a riveting hobby, as he has meticulously collected his belly button lint since 1984. Today, he has amassed what is recognized as the largest collection of belly button lint, and his unwavering dedication to belly button fluff has earned him a place in the annals of record-breaking oddities.

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While it might seem that any teenager can break this record with ease if given free reign, it would actually take some serious dedication - and a lot of stamina! - to beat Carrie Swidecki, a California teacher that set the Guinness World Record for Longest videogame marathon while playing Just Dance for an impressive 138 hours.

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Yes, you heard right. There is a World Record for the Farthest Distance Squirting Milk From The Eye. Insane as it sounds, Ilker Yilmaz from Turkey holds the record for the farthest milk squirting distance from the eye. In 2004, he squirted milk to an impressive (to be fair, everything about this is quite shocking) distance of 9 feet 2 inches.

Credit: Alan Hardman

Paul Slosar of Summerville, South Carolina, is the proud record holder for the longest mustache ever. Despite having fierce competition, he broke the world record with an impressive 2 feet 1 inches long whiskers. His meticulously groomed "English" styled facial hair is measured from the top of the lip, so that it cannot be confused with nearby beard hair.

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Shridhar Chillal from India holds the record for the longest fingernails on a single hand, with a combined fingernail length of an astounding 358.1 inches as of 2014. His dedication to growing his nails over decades is as impressive as their lenght, even if the end result might be a little unsettling.

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Again, you might justifiably ask: what have I just read? Well, apparently a man named Kevin Shelley, also fittingly known as "The Iron Head," has shattered 46 toilet seats with his head in just one minute in 2007, securing the world record for the most toilet seats broken by the head in a minute. Even though he probably doesn’t have much competition, it is still an impressive feat - and his pain tolerance has left audiences astonished.

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Gao Bingguo, a beekeeper from China, covered himself in a staggering 1.1 million bees, setting the record for the most bees on a human body. The "mantle" of bees weighed almost 240 pounds, and he was stung over 2,000 times during the whole ordeal, but he survived the attempt thanks to his calm demeanor and affinity with the insects.

Credit: Daniel Watson

David Rush, a renowned record-breaker, balanced a lawn mower (fortunately not powered) on his chin for an incredible 30 minutes and 33 seconds, setting the record for the longest time balancing a lawn mower on the chin. He already has over 200 Guinness World Records titles, so who knows what he might come up with next?

SOMETIMES WORDS ARE NOT ENOUGH

Learn about 12 Ways Animals Communicate with Each Other

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From the majestic whales that traverse the ocean depths to the tiny ants orchestrating their complex colonies, animals employ an astonishing array of communication methods to convey information, establish social bonds, and navigate the challenges of their environments.

Whether through intricate dances, melodic songs, chemical signals, or the subtle nuances of body language, the animal kingdom is a vibrant testament to the myriad ways in which creatures express themselves. So join us on a journey into the fascinating world of interspecies communication, where the sounds of nature transcend the boundaries of language as we know it.

Credit: David Clode

In the world of animal communication, the dances performed by various species reveal a rich language of expressions and interactions, just like they do with us. Observing bees in their hives, Karl Von Frisch uncovered a phenomenon known as the "waggle dance": upon discovering a food source, the bees returned to the hive and engaged in a dance, with fellow bees touching their abdomens. This dance communicated precise information about the direction and distance of the newfound sustenance.

The world of tiny dancers extends beyond the buzzing bees. For example, the peacock spider taps its legs to attract nearby female spiders. And clark’s grebes engage in a synchronized water ballet when seeking a mate.

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The African elephant and the tarsier represent the extremes of the auditory spectrum. African elephants produce low-frequency vibrations below 20 hertz, imperceptible to the human ear. This method of communication transcends great distances, with an infrasound signal from one elephant reaching another over 175 miles away.

On the opposite end, the tarsier, a tiny primate, emits frequencies exceeding 20,000 Hertz—sounds beyond our hearing range. This high-pitched communication serves the tarsier well in the jungle cacophony, allowing them to exchange vital information about potential threats beyond the reach of predators.

Credit: Jonathan Diemel

Cephalopods are masters of the color spectrum. They employ their remarkable ability to change hues for a lot of communicative purposes. Squid and cuttlefish utilize this skill not only to signal their availability for mating but also to assert their territorial dominance or ward off potential threats.

Octopuses, on the other hand, make good use of their color-changing abilities as a camouflage technique and a defensive signal. A sudden shift to white with black accents around their eyes communicates a feeling of vulnerability and a potential readiness to defend.

Credit: David Clode

Some fish, like eels, use electricity as their conversational medium. Eels can generate electric fields with a potential of up to one volt, creating a unique form of communication.

Employing specialized electroreceptors, these fish receive signals transmitted through electric waves. Upon reception, the fish deciphers the signal's frequency and waveform, revealing the language encoded within.

Credit: Nicole Wreyford

The white rhinoceros creates communal defecation sites called middens. This site acts as a type of rhino message board, as the feces contain all sorts of biological and societal information.

A midden can communicate who rules that specific area. The dominant male rhino will often defecate directly in the middle of the midden and kick around his waist, both to spread his smell around the midden and to get it stuck on his feet so that others can recognize the scent wherever he goes.

Whistles, Growls, and Hums

Credit: Amy Reed

Moving into the world of verbal communication, animals showcase an amazing array of vocal prowess. Dholes, the fox-wolf lookalikes, break away from their canid relatives by employing whistles, clucks, and eerie shrieks across their expansive territories of up to 35 square miles.

Silverback gorillas command attention through humming, using it as a bell of sorts to call their group. Similarly, chimps and bonobos prove to be noisy eaters, shedding light on primate social structures through their vocalizations. Yet, prairie dogs steal the show in the complexity of their linguistic skills, using distinct calls to identify approaching predators.

Credit: Svetozar Cenisev

Residing exclusively underground, the African demon mole rats have adopted a headbanging strategy to send messages to their fellow mole rats. Thumping their heads against the tunnel ceilings, these rhythmic vibrations travel through the earth, serving as a unique language in the subterranean darkness.

The pace and intensity of these percussive signals become the code of communication, allowing the demon mole rats to convey a range of meanings to their rodent companions. In the depths of the earth, where conventional sound dissipates quickly, these headbangers have found a method both unconventional and effective to transmit vital information.

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We have been using songs to convey all kinds of emotions, birds are known to use their songs for different purposes too. In a unique mating strategy, the female Peruvian warbling antbird disrupts her partner's harmonious song to thwart potential rivals, turning their love song into a discordant domestic dispute that ensures fidelity in the avian courtship.

Another example of a bird using its song for a curious purpose is the Australian male fairy-wren: despite the threat of butcher birds, the male fairy-wrens exhibit an audacious strategy called "vocal hitchhiking". When a nearby butcher bird issues a call, male fairy-wrens boldly respond, showcasing their bravado to attract the attention of female wrens.

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The sperm whales engage in a sophisticated language of clicking sounds known as "codas". These acoustic signals serve as a means of conveying information among the whales, creating a complex system akin to regional dialects.

Remarkably, sperm whales in distinct oceanic areas exhibit variations in their clicking patterns, giving rise to unique auditory signatures. Recent findings suggest the possibility of delicate variations not only between different regional groups but potentially within individual clans or even among specific whales.

Credit: Tyler Quiring

Ravens communicate with each other through a distinctive form of gesticulation. Much like humans employing hand movements to emphasize points, ravens use their beaks and wings to transmit messages.

In a fascinating display, they show or offer items such as moss, stones, or twigs, often directed towards potential mates. This sign language extends beyond solo performances, with ravens showcasing interactive behaviors like clasping their bills together or collaboratively moving an object.

Credit: Jonathan Mast

European bison communicate in a subtle yet powerful form, where their massive frames belie a soft-spoken language. When these herds decide to move, leadership emerges not from a dominant figure but through a communal decision-making process.

Any member of the herd, regardless of age or gender, can initiate the movement by taking a decisive 20 or more steps in a chosen direction without pausing to graze. The others, trusting this directional choice, simply follow suit. In this unique system, the leading individual becomes the de facto leader.

Credit: Shashank Hudkar

In southeastern Brazil resides the black-fronted titi, a primate with a sophisticated communication system. Their remarkably dense alarm calls showcase a linguistic prowess uncommon in the animal kingdom.

The black-fronted titi stands out as one of the few species capable of syntax, expertly combining different language units into what can be considered "sentences." Their squeaking calls differentiate between ground- and sky-based threats, with rising pitches signaling the approach of caracaras, and long-legged hawks, while fading calls indicate lurking predatory cats.