Buzz
One contender for the title of the "World's Largest Poop" is the Lloyd's coprolite, a piece of fossilized stool discovered beneath the future site of Lloyd's Bank in York. It's currently displayed at the Jorvik Viking Centre. While it may appear large, it’s nowhere near the exaggerated 26 feet! Linda Spashett/Wikipedia/CC BY 2.5If you search "world's longest poop" on Google, you’ll likely find a claim of 26 feet (8 meters). It sounds unbelievable, and that’s because this so-called "record" is nothing but a big pile of... well, garbage.
That absurd and often misreported figure stems from an art installation in Michigan. It turns out that the installation was the work of Michelle Hines, a Brooklyn-based artist, and it was built on a series of hoaxes.
In 1995, the so-called 26-foot long poop was displayed on a bowling alley lane, complete with measuring tools and staged photos. The artist behind this fabrication claimed she had "adopted a super fiber-rich diet which allowed me to successfully produce a single extruded excrement measuring the exact length of my colon: 26 feet."
The problem is, even the Hulk couldn’t sport a colon that long. The average human colon is only about 5 feet (150 centimeters) long, from top to bottom.
Don't be too disappointed by this revelation, though, because the real story of one potential contender for the world's longest poop is much more fascinating. Back in 1972, while a London bank called Lloyd's was being built, a fossilized turd (known scientifically as a "coprolite") was discovered. Upon further research, it was found that this piece of excrement was left by a Viking man in the ninth century. While this might seem like a letdown, the rare discovery was actually a huge find. In fact, paleoscatologist Andrew Jones described it as "precious as the crown jewels," according to the Guardian.
Compared to the artist's outlandish tale, the Viking poo, measuring only 7.8 inches (20 centimeters) long and 2 inches (5 centimeters) wide, isn’t as remarkable. (Typical stool ranges from 4-8 inches, or 10-20 centimeters in length and 0.4-0.8 inches or 1-2 centimeters in diameter.) However, it was the result of a strict "meat and potatoes" diet to create such a sizeable deposit. It was also full of parasitic eggs, which must have made for a pretty uncomfortable, painful poop. This preserved specimen is on display at the Jorvik Viking Centre in York, England.
Of course, we hope no one is out there knocking on restroom doors measuring fossilized turds to dethrone this one. Surprisingly, Guinness World Records has yet to establish a definitive record for the largest poop, as reported by Snopes. So, if you think you can top a Viking's contribution, feel free to try.
Don’t stress if you’re not exactly frequent with your trips to the bathroom. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to pooping. In fact, any range of frequency, whether it's multiple times a day or just a few times a week, is perfectly normal. The Bristol Stool Chart offers a visual guide to the different types of stool you may encounter and what they signify.
