Why human beings can’t lift as much weight as ants

While it may not do the human ego any favours, ants have been documented to be able to carry up to 20 times their own body weight. If a human could lift 20 times their body weight… that would be around 1,800kg.

In this video, ant biologist Fred Larabee and paleoanthropologist John Hawks discuss our species’ heavy weight lifting capacity, and what it is about our biology that prevents us from lifting as much as ants. The two scientists also talk about what it would take for humans to be able to match ants’ lifting superpowers.

View the original video here.

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