World Record For Widest Female Tongue Smashed For First Time In 10 Years

The world record for the widest female tongue has just been broken for the first time in 10 years. No need to adjust your display settings – you read that just right.

The proud owner of the gargantuan glossa is Texan Brittany Lacayo. Her tongue measures 7.9 centimeters (3.11 inches) at its widest point. That’s about the width of a credit card. The total length of her tongue is only 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) more than that, making it almost a square – there's a fun fact for you!

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Guinness World Records confirmed that attorney Lacayo’s tongue has surpassed the previous record of 7.33 centimeters (2.89 inches), which had been held by fellow American Emily Schlenker for 10 years. Schlenker’s father Byron also held the corresponding male record for a short time, before he was gazumped by Brian Thompson , whose tongue width was measured at an as-yet unbeaten 8.88 centimeters (3.49 inches).

It was a video of Schlenker that inspired Lacayo to measure her own tongue to see how it matched up. Her family had often joked about the size of it when she was a kid, but she’d never seriously considered it might be record-breaking.

“It is neat and kind of funny,” she said, adding that most people react with either “shock” or “curiosity” when they see her tongue for the first time… which is pretty much how we felt when we saw the pictures.

The world records for the longest tongues have also gone unchallenged for some years. The female record was achieved by Chanel Tapper in 2010, an astonishing 9.75 centimeters (3.8 inches). Meanwhile, the male record stands at 10.1 centimeters (3.97 inches), set by Nick Stoeberl in 2012.

But if you think those are impressive, they pale into insignificance when compared with certain members of the animal kingdom. The giant anteater ( Myrmecophaga tridactyla ) holds the record for longest tongue among land mammals, with reports of them extending as far as 61 centimeters (2 feet) .

And if you’re wondering whether your licker might be a record-breaker, it might be time to ask yourself: How well do you know your tongue?