“Strong Man” Is Weakling Compared with Insect (Mar, 1922)

“Strong Man” Is Weakling Compared with Insect

WEIGHT for weight, the most powerful professional “strong man” is a weakling compared with many common insects. If our legs had the same relative power as those of a flea, for example, we could jump with ease over a church spire 300 feet high.

An ant moving a heavy pebble up a little slope of earth is performing a feat equivalent to that of a man pulling a railroad train along the track single-handed. Ants have frequently drawn little wagons 1400 times as heavy as themselves.

Even the weakest beetle can lift five times its own weight. The rove beetle has drawn a cart 45 times its own weight, and has lifted 1800 times its weight in escaping from beneath the cover of a tin can.

An ant, caught up by its hind legs with pincers, has been known to lift a small lead ball, into which it has bitten with its maniples, high into the air. As the ball weighed 800 times as much as the ant, a man with strength in proportion could lift 40 tons.