When you call someone a big mouth, you don’t typically mean that they actually have a large mouth. For the bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus), however, calling them a big mouth would be an absolute understatement.

Compared to humans, all whales have big mouths, but the mouth of the bowhead whale is large compared to every other animal in the world. That’s right, it holds the record for the largest mouth in the world, coming in at 5 meters (16.4 feet) long and 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) wide.

When they open wide, the gap between their ‘lips’ is about 4 meters (13.1 feet) high.

This massive mouth isn’t only big because the whale itself is big. This species of whale can weigh up to about 90 tons and measures about 20 meters (66 feet) long. If you do the math real quick, that means their mouth is between 25% and 33% of their entire body. Just think how awkward we would look if our mouths were that massive.

This statistic means that in addition to holding the record for the largest mouth in the world, the bowhead whale also has the largest head of any cetacean. And it is also the longest living mammal known with a lifespan of about 200 years.

And just to show off, they also hold the record for the longest baleen plates of any whale, growing 5-6 meters (1.4 to 19.7 feet) long. Baleen plates are kind of like teeth, but not used for chewing at all. Instead, they are fringed and made of keratin. Also, they come down from the upper jaw, not both.

These baleen plates are used like a sieve to allow the water to flow out of their mouth while trapping the small fish, krill, plankton, and other food in place so they can eat it. This is important since experts estimate that this whale species needs to eat about 100 tons of food each year to survive. That isn’t easy when you are only eating tiny creatures due to having a very small throat opening.

This record holding whale is really quite interesting, and it continues to be heavily studied by whale researchers today who want to figure out how it is able to live so long (among other things).

Thought that was fascinating? Here’s another story you might like: Why You’ll Never See A Great White Shark In An Aquarium