It’s no secret that no two people on earth are alike!
It's fair to say that everyone has a number of similarities - like we all have two arms,
legs, eyes and ears.
But among seven and a half billion people on Earth, there’s a very small number of
truly unique people.
This is some physical feature that makes them really stand out from the crowd because there’s
almost nobody else on earth that has it.
Ready to see the most unusually unique people on earth?
Let’s get it on!
GARY TURNER This is Gary Turner, but most people know
him by a different name: Elastic man.
He took the Guinness World Record for the stretchiest skin all the way back in 1999
and nobody has been able to beat him since.
His performances might look uncomfortable, but actually he can stretch his skin without
any pain.
This is all because of an extreme case of Ehlers Danlos syndrome, a genetic disorder
that can affect ligaments, internal organs and of course, the skin.
As a result of this, his skin is super stretchy because of defective collagen, but it’s
not without problems: any wounds in his skin take a long time to heal and he had to quit
football because of it.
But these days it’s not too much of a problem, and he uses his stretchy skin to his advantage
by working as a sideshow performer.
RODRÍGUEZ HERNANDEZ You know what they say about big feet?
Big shoes!
But how big exactly?
Well, Rodríguez Hernandez from Venezuela has the record for the biggest feet on a living
person, with a shoe size measuring in at a whopping 16 inches and a shoe size of 26!
It won’t be a shock to anyone that he struggled to find shoes that fit, since most commercial
shoe shops only sell up to about a size 14.
So as a teenager, he often went barefoot and was bullied by other kids for the size of
his feet, which are as large as they are due to an overactive pituitary gland that produces
too much growth hormone.
His feet are actually even bigger than the feet of the tallest man on earth!
Now though, his Guinness World Record fame means that people are more than happy to custom-make
shoes to fit his feet.
I guess every story has a happy ending.
DEVENDRA SUTHAR Most of us learnt to count on our fingers
and sometimes our toes too, but Devendra Suthar would’ve been very confused if he’d tried
that.
That’s because instead of 20 fingers and toes, he has 28.
That’s two extra fingers on each hand, and two extra toes on each foot.
While it’s not that uncommon to have an extra one or two, his specific form of polydactylism
is extremely rare.
So rare in fact, that he holds the Guinness World Record for the largest number of fingers
and toes in the world.
So what would someone with extra fingers choose to do for a living?
He’s a carpenter.
It seems unwise for someone with extra fingers to choose a job where people with only 10
fingers regularly cut one off, and he does say he has to be extra careful, but the extra
concentration hopefully makes him particularly good at carpentry.
MATTHIAS SCHLITTE Everyone has memories of Popeye’s huge arm
muscles pummelling some goon.
Bet you didn’t ever expect to see someone with a real-life arm like that, but now you
can.
Matthias Hellboy Schlitte has a rare genetic defect that’s made the bone in his right
forearm 33% bigger than his normal-sized left arm.
Of course, every super-power has its purpose, so it won’t surprise you to learn that Matthias
has been a very successful, professional arm-wrestler for over a decade.
But actually, when he was about to start out, he was laughed at by other pros for wanting
to get into the sport because he doesn’t weigh nearly as much as your average arm-wrestler.
What they didn’t realise is that most of his weight is in his wrestling arm, and most
of his competitors never stood a chance against him.
JEFF DABE Possibly the most useful of all of the unusual
features on this list belongs to Jeff Dabe.
He has truly remarkably large hands.
Actually his arms are exceptionally large too - they probably have to be to operate
such large hands.
You won’t be at all surprised to learn that he’s a professional arm wrestler - frankly,
it would be a waste if he wasn’t.
He would need to put his basketball-sized hands and forearms with a 19-inch circumference
to use somehow, although he does only wrestle with his left arm as a result of an old injury.
You’re probably wondering what medical condition caused his giant limbs, and there’s a pretty
interesting answer to that: none.
He just happened to be born that way, with big arms and hands that kept growing with
him.
Some people are just destined to be famous.
JYOTI KISANJI AMGE This is Jyoti Kisanji Amge, she’s from India
and she’s the world’s shortest living woman.
It was first discovered that she wasn’t growing like a normal child at the age of
5.
The doctors realised she had a rare form of dwarfism known as achondroplasia, which meant
that she would never grow beyond a certain height.
At 15 years old she got her first Guinness World Record for being the shortest living
teenager, and she really was tiny!
At that point, she was only 9lb heavier than she was when she was born.
She now has her second Guinness World Record, for Shortest Living Woman standing at only
2 foot and 0.7 inches.
Her life isn’t always easy and all her clothes, shoes, and even her plates and cutlery need
to be made especially for her, but she’s also achieved her dreams of being able to
travel and becoming a household name.
SULTAN KÖSEN Sultan Kösen’s feet are the only part of
him that’s been beaten by something larger: the tallest living man has very few rivals.
He’s one of only 10 men in all human history that has been reliably measured at over 8
foot tall.
He’s actually 8 foot 2.8 inches, but he didn’t always tower over everyone - he only
started his unusual growth spurt at the age of 10.
It was caused by a tumor causing his pituitary gland to produce too much growth hormone,
but luckily his Guinness World Record fame meant surgeons gave him the life saving surgery
he needed to remove the tumor completely for free.
And that’s not all he’s happy about: he also fulfilled his dream of falling in love
and getting married, and he can finally get clothes made that actually fit him.
ADRIANNE LEWIS I’ll bet almost everyone has seen at least
one person showing off how long their tongue is, but not one of those showmen can beat
Adrianne Lewis.
She thinks she may have the longest tongue in the world, and she may well be right - measuring
in at an incredible 4 inches!
How long is that exactly?
Well, her YouTube channel has plenty of examples of the amazing things she can do with it.
She can lick her chin, her nose and her elbow - which let me just remind you, is supposed
to be impossible.
More than that, she can even lick her own eye like a chameleon!
And let’s not forget how long their tongues are!
Her tongue is so long that in elementary school she used to use it to deter bullies by freaking
them out.
There doesn’t seem to be any reason for its abnormal length, so I guess she just got
lucky.
BYRON SCHLENKER We’ve already shown you the longest tongue,
but Guinness has many different ways to measure things.
Byron Schlenker doesn’t have the longest tongue, but he does have the widest.
I would’ve never thought that would be very impressive, but that was before I’d seen
it.
It’s an unbelievable 3.37 inches wide!
He discovered this unique feature while flicking through a Guinness World Record book to help
his daughter with a school project - he saw the previous record was 3.1 inches and was
sure he could beat it.
He was right, and not so long after he had stolen the title.
But remember his daughter he was helping with the school project?
Well, she’s the apple that didn’t fall far from the tree.
It turns out she has the world’s widest tongue for a woman and, at 2.89 inches, it’s
very nearly as impressive as her dad’s.
ISAAC JOHNSON Isaac Johnson from Minnesota looks like your
average teenager… right up until the moment he opens his mouth.
He has the Guinness World Record for the biggest mouth gape, and they’re not joking around
with this one.
He can open his mouth so wide, most people would presume they’re looking at CGI enhanced
footage.
How wide is it really?
3.67 inches!
Seriously, grab a ruler and check how wide your mouth opens for a comparison: I guarantee
it’s nowhere near that big.
I’m not sure how useful it is, but I’m sure it goes some way to filling up that teenage-boy
appetite.
And if that fails, maybe he should check if he can get a job in the movies playing IT…
or Jaws even.