From the biggest land animals on earth to a tiny creature that can carry up to 1,000
times its own weight, here are 10 of the strongest animals in the world.
10.
Grizzly Bears
Grizzly bears have a very bad reputation!
Known as powerful, man-eating predators, much of their diet consists of fish, berries, nuts
and rodents.
But then you get to bigger prey like Moose, and those aren’t as easy to take down!!
In case you haven’t noticed, a moose has a VERY thick neck.
More accurately known as North American brown bears, they can be found mainly throughout
Canada and Alaska.
Mature grizzlies can stand up to 8 feet (2.4 m) tall and they can weigh up to 800 pounds
(363 kg).
These giant animals have frightened us for centuries and for good reason because they
are very clever, and will even attack other bears and eat them.
They have long claws, are very good climbers and can run up to 35 miles per hour- that’s
faster than Usain Bolt.
They’re not shabby swimmers either.
In terms of their strength they can, amazingly, lift up to 500 pounds of weight (226 Kg).
That's 0.8 times their own body weight.
Grizzly bears have a bite force of about 1160 pounds per square inch (compared to our measly
162 psi).
Keep this number in mind as we compare it to other animals too!
An animal of this size and power needs to be dealt with carefully as they can be incredibly
dangerous.
If you ever come face to face in the wild with a grizzly, you shouldn't run, but stand
firm and make yourself look as big as possible.
Don't look them directly in the eyes, never offer them food-unless you are able to throw
a steak really far- and back away slowly!!
9.
Anacondas
Anacondas are part of the boa constrictor family.
There are four different species.
Do you know what they are?
There is the Bolivian, Yellow, and Dark Spotted Anaconda, along with the largest of all…
the Green Anaconda.
These beasts can grow to 30 feet long (9.1 m), and weigh as much as 600 pounds (272 kg)!
The green anaconda is the largest snake in the world by body mass.
Green Anacondas are found in the Amazon basin, where they live around marshes, swamps, and
slow-moving regions of water.
Unlike other snake species, they give birth to live young, and the females grow much larger
than the males.
Living for up to 10 years, anacondas aren't venomous snakes and, instead, capture their
prey and squeeze them to death before eating them whole.
They quite often target pigs, caiman, and even jaguars…and it's this adeptness at
hunting that shows just how strong they are.
In a documentary on the Discovery Channel, scientists were able measure the squeezing
force to be 90 psi which is 9,000 pounds of pressure per square inch.
This would be like having a school bus sitting on your chest.
They don’t necessarily suffocate their prey, but actually can kill much more quickly by
causing circulatory collapse!!
8.
Elephants
Elephants are, without a doubt, the strongest land animals in the world, and they are also
the largest so it makes sense that it would be proportional.
There are three species of elephant, the African Bush, the African forest, and the Asian elephant,
and as their name suggests, they can be found across Africa and Asia.
Asian elephants are used in the logging industry and often carry 3 or 4 tonnes of weight per
day.
They have a very strong frame and can lift a log weighing up to 300 kg with just its
trunk.
Male African elephants are the largest, and can typically grow to about 3.3 meters (10.8
feet) to the shoulder, and weigh more than seven tons, or 13,000 pounds.
With such large weight comes a large frame.
The skeletons of most mammals account for about 10% of their overall weight, but with
elephants, this figure is closer to 20%.
Their straight limbs also help them to resist the downward force of their mass easier, and
this allows them to lift huge weights.
Their trunks alone, which contain 150,000 muscle fibers, can lift up to 650 pounds (295
kg), but their entire bodies can move many times that.
Because of their amazing strength and intelligence, elephants have been used throughout history
as transporters, pack animals, and even for combat.
And now for number 7 but first, can you guess what number 1 is going to be?
Leave your answer in the comments below!!
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7.
Musk Oxen
You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘as strong as an ox’, but how strong do you think they
actually are?
Musk Oxen live in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic and are known for their thick, shaggy,
coats and the strong odor they emit during mating season.
They have long curved horns and can grow to 5 feet (1.52 m) tall, and 8 feet (2.43 m)
long.
They can weigh up to 900 pounds (408 kg) in the wild and can run up to 37 miles per hour
(59.5 km) , but it's their strength that's truly impressive.
A musk ox can pull and carry something across difficult terrain that's more than 1.5 times
their own weight- something the vast majority of humans would struggle to do.
Their endurance is just as extreme, they are able to pull heavy loads like this for many
hours at a time without needing to stop.
It's no wonder they were such an important animal to the original farmers and settlers
in the region.
6.
Tigers
Tigers are amazing creatures that are perfectly adapted to survive in their environments.
They are the largest of all cat species, growing to up to 4 m (13 feet) long, and 306 kg (675
lbs) in weight.
There are six living species of tiger: the Bengal, Siberian, Indochinese, Malayan, South
China, and Sumatran tiger- remember these, there will be a pop quiz later!!
Just kidding!)
While there are another 3 species that are thought to recently have become extinct- the
Bali, Caspian, and Javan tiger.
Across the different species is a wide range of differing sizes, colors, and behaviors-
one thing that stays true across all types of tiger, though, is their incredible strength.
They can, for example, carry something that's as much as twice their own weight, and haul
it into a ten-foot high tree (3 meters).
They have a major impact on every ecosystem they live in, to the extent where other predators
have evolved to hunt at different times of day simply to avoid confrontations with tigers.
They pose significant threats to communities who live nearby and, as such, have become
revered creatures… and are even the national animal of India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and
South Korea.
5.
Eagles
Eagles are some of the largest birds of prey on earth and are found across the planet.
There are more than 60 different species, each of which has its own unique strengths,
but all are regarded as apex predators wherever they are found.
Some, such as the martial eagle from Africa, have 3 times clearer vision than humans, and
all of them have characteristics that make them ideally suited for hunting and capturing
prey.
The bald eagle is the eagle species that has been recorded carrying the heaviest weight,
with one having flown with a 15-pound mule deer fawn in its grip!!
Their strength comes from their powerful leg muscles, tendons, and bones, which combine
to give them a gripping strength of more than 400 psi… which is more than 10 times the
grip of an adult human hand.
Add this strength to their behavior- never surrendering to the size or strength of their
prey, and continually fighting until they have regained control of their territory,
and it's clear to see why eagles are by far the strongest of all birds.
4.
Gorilla
Gorillas are the largest living primates, with two species being found across sub-Saharan
Africa.
They are knuckle-walkers, and can grow to 1.8 m (6 feet) tall and 195 kg (430 lbs) with
an arm span of up to 2.6 meters (8.5 feet)!
They live in highly complex social structures, and are the dominant species, apart from humans,
in all the areas where they are found.
Occasionally it's thought that leopards hunt Gorillas, but this is behavior that's yet
to be verified.
They have a varied diet, which consists mainly of leaves, stems, and shoots, and rarely drink
water because they tend to get all the fluid they need from their food.
It’s perhaps a surprise that they can become so strong with a diet like this, but they
are incredibly powerful.
Some studies suggest that they are able to lift more than 10 times their own body weight,
which can be as much as 1,814 kg (4,000 lbs)!
That means they could bench press 30 people at once, which puts everyone down at the gym
to shame!
3.
Leafcutter Ant
I’ve told you about how powerful some of the largest animals can be, but arguably it’s
the smallest ones that exhibit the greatest strength when you consider their size.
Take the leafcutter ant, for example.
There are at least 47 different species of them across Southern and Central America,
where they harvest fresh vegetation to feed their nests.
Colonies build large nests where the main structure can be up to 30 m (100 feet) across
and, along with radiating mounds, have been measured at up to 79 m (260 feet) across in
total- which is enough to house 8 million individuals.
Such large communities need huge amounts of food, and this is where each ant's individual
strength comes in.
The Mediae ants, which are the ones responsible for cutting the leaves and bringing them back
to the nest, can carry twenty times their own body weight, which is similar to a human
lifting a small car above their head.
What may be a bigger surprise, though, is that none of the ants actually eat the leaves
that are collected.
Rather than supplying a giant salad bar, the vegetation is, instead, used to feed their
large fungus gardens, and it’s this fungus that the ants eat as food.
2.
Rhinoceros Beetle
Rhinoceros beetles are a member of the scarab beetle family and are one of the largest species
of beetle in the world.
They can grow to be 6.4 cm (2.5 in) long and have two horns- one from the top of their
heads, and another protruding from their thorax.
These horns are used to battle with other beetles for supremacy, and also to help them
move through the undergrowth.
It's thought their strength, too, has developed to help them bury themselves underground to
avoid danger, and to dig their way through the thick jungle undergrowth.
Along with their ferocious appearance, the beetles also emit a loud hiss if they are
disturbed, but they are harmless to humans.
They can, though, lift weights of up to 850 times their own, which is insane!
This would be the same as a human being able to lift an object that was 65 tons, the same
weight as one of the heaviest dinosaurs that ever existed, the Dreadnoughtus.
1.
Dung Beetle
As well as being the strongest animal in the world compared to its body mass, the dung
beetle is also one of the grossest.
There are thousands of different species of dung beetle, from those who spend their lives
burying feces, those who roll it into balls, and those that simply live in big piles of
manure.
Interestingly, one of the species, the Scarabaeus satyrus, is the only non-vertebrate animal
that’s known to use the light from the sun and the moon to navigate.
Dung beetles are found in most places around the world and are crucial to churning the
soil and helping to recycle nutrients.
To do this, some species are able to bury more than 250 times their own body weight
worth of dung in a night, or pull and push balls of dung that weigh more than 1000 times
their own weight- the same as a human dragging a small house behind them.
Their importance to our environment was revered by the ancient Egyptians, who believed the
Scarab beetles rolled the sun above the horizon before renewing it for the next day.
In some regions of Asia, dung beetles are seen as a delicacy, but I can’t say I’ll
be first in line to try one anytime soon!
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