Comparable in height to a skyscraper and weighing a whopping 13,500 tons, the German-made Bagger 288 holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest excavator.

Here at oddity Central, we love big, heavy machinery! In fact, we just featured the world’s largest dump truck, the BelAZ-75710, a Belarussian behemoth capable of carrying a load of over 500 tons. However, this metal monster looks positively tiny next to the world’s largest excavator. A one-of-one, the Bagger 288 giant excavator was produced in 1978 by German company Krupp and has been holding on to the title of ‘world’s largest excavator’ ever since. It can go through 240,000 cubic meters of rock per day, and is used to produce around 8.5 million tons of coal per year.

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German artist Werner Härtl has carved out a truly unique niche for himself – he is currently the only known artist who uses diluted cow dung to create sepia-style paintings.

Here at Oddity Central, we’ve featured some funky art mediums in the past, from the artist’s own blood as paint, to dead cockroaches as canvases for tiny paintings, but in terms of weirdness, few things come close to Werner Härtl’s chosen medium. The German artist started experimenting with cow dung in 2012, during a stint as an agricultural worker. He packed some manure into a canister and used water to dilute it in order to obtain different sepia tones. These days, he prefers to get the ‘paint’ directly from the source, placing the canister just under the cow’s rectum as it poops. He claims that harvesting just two bovine bowel movements provides him with enough material for at least half a year.

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An Indonesian fisherman claims to have shared a friendship with a four-meter-long saltwater crocodile for over 20 years and calls the reptile part of the local community.

59-year-old Ambo, a fisherman from Bontang City, in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan, has become somewhat of a celebrity in his country because of his unusual friendship with a giant saltwater crocodile named Rizka. The giant reptile has been a constant part of Ambo’s life for the past 26 years, ever since he first laid eyes on her in the waters of Pupuk Kaltim. She was only about one meter in size back then, and he didn’t pay much attention to her as she swam past his boat, but when he noticed that she had followed him home, Ambo grabbed some food and tossed it in the water. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship spanning 26 years and who knows how many more going forward.

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A Tulsa gas station clerk is being accused of staging a robbery because he felt tired and needed an excuse to get off work early.

On June 5th, Isaias Jones called the Tulsa Police Department that a masked man had walked into the gas station store he was working in, pulled out a firearm, and threatened to shoot him if he didn’t give him all the money in the register. Jones allegedly complied and the masked robber left in a hurry. Surveillance cameras confirmed the clerk’s version of the events, but the footage also helped police identify the robber, and when they managed to apprehend them, they learned that there was more to this case than they originally believed…

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Suodiu is a bizarre type of Chinese street food that consists of small river rocks stir-fried with a mixture of spices and herbs. You are supposed to suck on the stones and then spit them out.

Roughly translated as ‘suck and throw away’, suodiu is believed to have been invented hundreds of years ago by boatmen who would prepare the dish when they became stranded in the middle of the river with no real food while delivering goods. To trick their stomachs, they would stir-fry some river pebbles with various condiments and then suck the stones dry. The traditional dish was passed down through several generations, and today roadside vendors in China can sometimes be seen stir-frying bunches of river rocks with cilli oil, garlic sauce, garlic cloves and a mixture of spices.

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Ayam Ketawa, or the Indonesian laughing chicken, is a breed of long-crowing chicken known for the clarity of its crow, which has an unusual similarity to a human laugh.

Originating from Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province, the Ayam Ketawa was originally a status symbol for the region’s Buginese royal family. Its captivating appearance made it a symbol of courage, social status, and heroism, but if you know Indonesian, you will have noticed that the breed’s name, Ayam Ketawa, literally translates to ‘laughing chicken’. That’s because this chicken’s unusual chuckling noises seem to mimic human laughter. It is this distinct characteristic that makes the Ayam Ketawa popular as an exotic pet not just in its native Indonesia, but around the world.

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An inmate in Bangladesh sparked controversy in his own country after being released four years and four months earlier for hanging 26 people during his time in prison.

in 1991, Shahjahan Bhuiyan was sentenced to 42 years in prison for murder, but he served four years and four months less by carrying out executions of 26 fellow inmates during his time in prison. The 74-year-old man received two months’ commutation for each execution, which, coupled with his good behavior and other aspects, shortened his sentence by almost a decade. Shahjahan became a hangman at Dhaka Central Prison in 2001, after informing prison officials that he knew how to handle a rope. Bangladesh is one of the few countries in the world that carries out death sentences by hanging, so Shahjahan Bhuiyan’s skills were valued highly.

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A Chinese farmer claims to have successfully created a hybrid fruit that allows people to enjoy the taste of both melon and watermelon in equal measure.

A 40-something watermelon farmer from Fuyang, in China’s Anhui province, referred to only as Mr. A by Chinese news outlets recently lit up Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, with photos of a strange-looking fruit that he claimed was half-melon and half-watermelon. He had apparently documented his efforts to create a melon-watermelon hybrid for a while, but last week he posted the fruits of his labor on Weibo, claiming that he had finally achieved success after several failed attempts. The unusual fruits look like watermelons growing on top of melons, which he claims allows people to enjoy the taste of both fruits at the same time.

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Photos and clips of a proud-looking pigeon with its chest puffed out like a cartoon character and impressively long legs have been getting a lot of attention online.

The “chad pigeon” went viral after a UK pigeon breeder shared a clip of their impressive-looking bird on TikTok, where it quickly went viral. Million of people around the world have seen the footage and still can’t believe it’s a real animal. Some are convinced that it is the work of an AI-powered digital tool, while others claim that the video was digitally altered for views. However, the bird in the video is just a really impressive specimen of a rare pigeon breed called “English Pouter”. A simple Google search reveals that there is nothing too special about this particular bird, and that the extremely puffed-out chest and long legs are breed-specific traits.

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A family of poppy farmers in Slovakia has been having trouble getting rid of hundreds of swans that have become addicted to poppy seeds and sometimes even overdose on them.

Poppy farmers near the Slovakian town of Komarno first reported the presence of swans in their fields back in February. It is believed that they were originally attracted by the large puddles of water that formed in the area, but after pecking at the flowers all day, many of them became addicted to the opium-containing seeds and refused to leave. Back in May, Slovakian media reported that around 200 swans had made a poppy field near Komarno their home, causing around €10,000 in damages to the flowers and getting so high on the natural narcotic that many of them couldn’t even fly anymore.

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Teachers in Switzerland recently reported a worrying number of students, some as old as 11, still coming to school in diapers because they never learned how to use the toilet.

In Switzerland, some children begin school at age four, so it is not uncommon for them to still be wearing diapers. However, they are not the problem that many teachers in the European country are reportedly facing these days. According to multiple sources, students as old as 11 years old are coming to school in diapers, and teachers are expected to clean and change them if necessary. Apparently, the problem has become widespread enough that one headmaster in Aargau is organizing events to inform parents that children have to be ‘dry’ when they return to school after the summer holiday, while another school is putting out flyers to inform parents that teachers are not responsible for changing schoolchildren’s diapers.

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One of the world’s most expensive and sought-after coffee varieties is actually harvested from the droppings of the jacu, a large, black, turkey-like bird whose digestive system brings out the aroma of the coffee beans.

When Henrique Sloper, the owner of the Camocim coffee farm in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo, first saw his coffee plantation overrun by jacu birds, he panicked, not knowing that the birds would soon become a sort of business partner. He called environmental protection agencies, but they didn’t know what to do and suggested that the farm introduce some natural predators for the large birds. But that was difficult to do, especially with a bird as large as the jacu, so, in the end, Sloper decided to adopt the old ‘if you can’t beat them, join them‘ mantra, and soon discovered that the bird invasion had been a blessing in disguise.

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The Speed Project is a relay-style ultramarathon unlike any other. It is an unofficial race for which runners have to receive an invitation, and it has but one rule – no running on freeways.

You’ve probably never heard of it, but within the ultramarathon community, participating in The Speed Project is somewhat of a Holy Grail. Running across the Death Valley, from the Santa Monica pier all the way to the Las Vegas welcome sign in a 340-mile ultramarathon with no rules and no set course has proven unusually appealing to runners looking for something new and exciting. It has been called the running world’s equivalent of “Fight Club”, because of the secrecy and mystery surrounding it, but it was precisely these characteristics that have massively boosted its popularity in recent years. However, despite big brands’ desire to be associated with The Speed Project, it remains exclusive to participants selected by the ultramarathon’s founders.

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The StockCam is an unusual camera cage for photography enthusiasts who need multiple mounting points for various accessories, as well as stability and better camera handling. It’s also shaped like an assault rifle…

If you’re a photographer who’s also into guns, you’ll probably love the design of the StockCam. It combines the functionality and convenience of a high-quality camera cage, with the aesthetics of a modern assault rifle. It even features a trigger to activate the shutter or lock the cage to ensure that the shutter doesn’t accidentally get pressed. You actually use it by pressing the stock against your shoulder and looking into the camera display as you would in a gun scope, and then press the trigger to shoot, as in take a picture. But can you imagine using one of these things around police?

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23-year-old Luiz Augusto Márcio Marques stopped growing after undergoing a surgical procedure to remove a very rare and aggressive tumor. Today he looks like a 13-year-old boy.

Luiz, who is better known as Guto in his native city of Passo Fundo, in Southern Brazil, had a perfectly normal life until the age of 7, when he started experiencing excruciating headaches that began manifesting more frequently as time passed. None of the doctors his parents took him to could diagnose his condition correctly, and the headaches started affecting his school activity and his daily life. Some claimed that it was just a virus, while others said that it was a psychological condition, or that he was just making everything up because he was lazy. It was only after the boy suffered a seizure that he was taken to the city hospital where the real cause of his headaches was finally revealed…

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