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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.

Masseter muscle 3 photograph
Anatomist90 ยท CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท licence ยท source

Where this comes from

Encyclopaedia Britannica

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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.
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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.
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