A five-month-old bar-tailed godwit recently smashed the record for long-distance migration after flying 13,560 kilometers non-stop over a period of 11 days.

Every autumn, millions of migratory birds take to the sky for a long and perilous journey to escape the coming cold, feed and breed for the next few months. Many of them cover impressive distances of over 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles), but this year, one small bird surpassed all expectations regarding long-distance flying, traveling a whopping 13,560 kilometers (8,425 miles) without stopping, and setting a new Guinness record in the process. And it was all because of an unusual detour that could have cost the bird its life, considering that the non-stop journey pushed its flight capacity to the limit.

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An archery master recently set a new Guinness Record by shooting seven consecutive arrows through a tiny keyhole using a traditional Ottoman bow.

Lars Andersen is often hailed as the world’s ultimate archer, performing feats that most us mere mortals can only dream about. He is the only person capable of shooting 10 arrows in just 4.9 seconds, he can shoot arrows that turn in mid-flight, and shoot while holding multiple arrows in his draw hand. Recently, Andersen added another feather to his already impressive cap by shooting seven consecutive arrows through a keyhole less than 10mm in size, thus setting a new Guinness record.

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A trio of origami and paper plane building enthusiasts recently obliterated the world record for the farthest paper plane flight by achieving a jaw-dropping distance of 77.134 m (252 ft 7 in).

On April 16, 2022, at an indoor sports venue in Daegu, South Korea, Kim Kyu Tae managed to shatter the world record for the longest paper plane flight with each one of his eight throws. The previous record of 69.14 m (226 ft 10 in) set by Joe Ayoob and John M. Collins had been standing for a decade, but Kim managed to break it on all of his eight measured attempts (71.813 m being the shortest and 77.134 m being the farthest). But Kim was just one part of a trio who worked hard on designing and building this simple-looking but remarkable paper plane.

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Walter Orthmann, a 100-year-old man from Brazil has been working for the same company since 1938, which officially makes his career worthy of the Guinness Book of Records.

Orthman began working for Industrias Renaux S.A., a textile company in Brusque, on January 17, 1938, when he was only 15-years-old. He began as an assistant in the shipping department, but over the years, he was promoted to administrative assistant and, eventually, sales manager. During his 84-year-long career, Walter went on sales trips all over the world, received his paycheck in nine different currency denominations, and used nearly every commercial airline in the history of Brazilian aviation.

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The Trapp family in Esko, Minnesota is officially the tallest family in the world with an average height of 203.29 cm (6 ft 8.03 in).

Krissy Trapp loves saying that she is the shortest person in the world’s tallest family. At 191.2 cm (6 ft 3 in), she definitely qualifies as very tall, especially for a woman, but she is indeed the shortest of her immediate family. Her husband, Scott, is a towering 202.7 cm (6 ft 8 in), while her two daughters, Savanna and Molly, measure 203.6 cm (6 ft 8 in) and 197.26 cm (6 ft 6 in), respectively. The youngest member of the Trapp family, Adam Trapp, is also the tallest at 221.71 cm (7 ft 3 in). Together, they have a combined height equal to the length of half a tennis court!

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An Ohio-based hairstylist has spent the last nine years of his life creating the world’s largest human hair ball out of the cut hair of his clients.

Steve Warden owns and operates a salon named Blockers in Cambridge, Ohio. In 2013, after his youngest child went off to college, he embarked on a quest to break the Guinness world record for the largest ball of human hair, and last month he did just that. Hoss the Hairball weighs a whopping 102.12 kg (225.13 lbs), which makes it over 25 kilograms heavier than the previous titleholder. And because lumps of human hair are constantly being added to it, Hoss is expected to keep growing for many years to come, making it really hard to dethrone.

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An ambitious mother who wanted to set a unique Guinness World Record gave her daughter a 1,019-letter name which resulted in her getting a two-foot-long birth certificate.

Over the years, we’ve featured some pretty unconventional baby names here on OC, but most of them at least made some kind of sense. The world’s longest name recorded on a birth certificate, on the other hand, is just that, long, and pretty much impossible to pronounce, but then again, that was basically the point. The mother who gave her daughter this incredibly long name told Oprah Winfrey that she just wanted to set a Guinness record and at the same time make sure that her girl had a unique name.

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An Australian man managed to break a decade-old Guinness record, after letting out a belch louder than the average electrical drill.

Neville Sharp, from Humpty Doo, Northern Territory, has been belching ever since his sister, Sandy, taught him how to do it when he was only six years old. He has been honing his “skill” ever since, but it was when his wife encouraged him to put his unusual talent to good use by going for a world record that he really started improving his belching. Neville has been practicing hard for the last five years, and in August of this year, the 51-year-old managed to break a record that had been standing for nearly 12 years, after letting out a 112.4-decibel burp.

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Some people spend most of their lives putting together a collection worthy of being recognized by the Guinness Book of Records, but one girl managed to achieve this feat at the tender age of six.

Scarlett Ashley Cheng is crazy about lip balm, and together with her sister, Kaylyn (8), owns the world’s largest collection of lip balms, numbering 3,388 different items. Their amazing collection features lip balms of different types, colors, textures and shapes, from known brands like Burt’s Bees, Eos, Humble or Nivea, as well as some obscure ones. Like most kids, Scarlett and her sister discovered lip balms when they started getting dry lips. Their grandmother introduced them to balms, and they just kind of went down the rabbit hole after that.

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The Slovenian city of Maribor is home to the world’s oldest grapevine still producing fruit, a resilient plant that dates back to the year 1570, when the city was facing an Ottoman invasion.

The Old Vine is the only plant in the world with its own dedicated museum, the Old Vine House, once part of the city wall. It grows on the side of this historic building and still produces an annual harvest of around 35 to 55 kg of grapes, enough to produce 15 to 35 liters of wine, which is bottled in special 2.5 dl bottles designed by famous artist Oskar Kogoj. Only about 100 bottles are produced every year, most of which are used as a special protocol gift. The Old Vine bears grapes of the “Žametovka” or “Modra kavčina” variety, one of the oldest domesticated noble vines in Slovenia.

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Percival Lugue, a graphic artist from the Philippines, has been collecting toys from various fast food chains since he was just 5-year-old. Now, at age 50, he holds the Guinness Record for the most fast food toys in the world, over 20,000 of them.

Lugue has held the record for the largest collection of fast food toys since 2014, when his tally stood at around 10,000 unique items, but he has been busy consolidating his record ever since, and now he has more than 20,000 toys. Like any child, he always liked playing with the toys he got with his fast food meals, but he always took care of them, so he was able to start his epic collection pretty early. Over the years, he has collected new items from various fast food chains, like McDonald’s, Burger King and even the Philippines’ favorite brand, Jollibee, and compares the excitement of adding a new toy to his collection to experiencing Christmas morning as a kid.

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The D’Cruz siblings, whose ages range from 75 to 97 years, recently set a new Guinness World Record for the highest combined age, 1042 years and 315 days.

The idea of setting a Guinness record was first mentioned among the D’Cruz family members during a reunion in 2018. 75-year-old Genia, the youngest of the 12 siblings, recalls one of her nephews going “This is amazing. I’m going to write Guinness,” after seeing the family together. They all laughed it off as a joke, but two years later, on December 15, Guinness actually called to let them know that they had been recognized as having the highest combined age of any siblings in the world, 1042 years and 315 days.

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Simone Williams, a young woman from Brooklyn, New York, recently broke the Guinness record for world’s largest natural afro, with her impressive 4 ft. 10 in (1.48 m) hairdo.

Simone started growing her hair naturally 9 years ago, as a way to save money on hair salon visits, ut never imagined that she would one day break the record for the world’s largest female afro. She had been wearing her hair straight until then, and admits that the transition was pretty tough at first, as she didn’t know how to properly manage her natural hair texture. She eventually got used to it though, and actually started comments and compliments on her “voluminous natural afro”. After reading about the previous record holder, Aevin Dugas, Simone was inspired to attempt breaking the record, but she still couldn’t believe it when she got the news.

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Akiko Obata has been fascinated by plastic food ever since she was a child, and 10 years ago she started collecting all sorts of plastic food items, amassing a collection of over 8,000 individual pieces.

“Sampuru”, the fake food displays used by most restaurants to showcase their dishes to potential diners, is an important part of Japanese food culture. They are considered superior to menus, as they give customers a much better idea of what they’ll be getting on their plates, and also help restaurant owners better showcase their dishes. Sampuru makers often go above and beyond to make their products as realistic as possible, and some do really look good enough to eat. Plastic foods are so popular in Japan that some people have actually started collecting them…

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DELO, a small German company specializing in industrial adhesives, recently set a new Guinness Record after successfully suspending a 17-tonne-truck in the air for an hour using only super-strong glue.

In an attempt to show that it produces the world’s strongest adhesives, Bavaria-based company DELO set out to lift a 17.5 tonne truck one meter above ground using only 3 grams of a very strong glue developed specifically for this event. They used an industrial crane and four aluminum cylinders with a cover surface of of 3.5 cm (the diameter of a standard soda can) bonded to the wheels of the truck with a few drops of high-temperature-resistant DELO MONOPOX adhesive. The truck hung in the air for a full hour, thus breaking the previous record of 16.09 tonnes.

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