Mondo Knows Facts
The masseter is the strongest muscle relative to its weight
Jaw muscles can exert enormous biting forces to crush tough food items
Located in the jaw, the masseter muscle generates the force needed for chewing. When all jaw muscles work together, they can close the teeth with a force exceeding 90 kilograms on the molars, making the masseter the strongest muscle in the body relative to its size.
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Tags: muscles, jaw, chewing
The masseter is the strongest muscle relative to its weight: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Jaw muscles can exert enormous biting forces to crush tough food items. The figure is taken from Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a human body fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Human Body shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.
