The human body has about 650 muscles—we say “about” because there is some disagreement as to which muscles are seperate and that results in different muscle totals.

Although the experts don’t agree on how many muscles there are in the human body, they do agree that the smallest muscle is the stapedius. Located in the middle ear, the stapedius is a mere 1.27 millimetres long. And what does such a miniscule muscle do? It controls the tiniest bone in the body, the stapes or stirrup bone. The stapes and two other bones conduct sound vibrations through the middle ear.