Last reviewed on: 18th November, 2021
Ants are insects from the family Formicidae; they are related to wasps and bees, they belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants come from wasp ancestors about 140 million years ago (Cretaceous period) and broadened after the emergence of flowering plants. About 12,500 species out of 22,000 species of ants has been classified and identified. You can identify these species simply by their distinctive node like structure, elbowed antennae and slender waists.
Ants contributes about 15-25% of the terrestrial animal biomass in most ecosystem, they are variable in so many environments because of their social union and their capability to transform habitats, protect themselves and rap resources. Ants have long co-evolution with others species, with special kind of relationship including; Parasitic, Mutualistic relationships, Commensal and Mimetic. Ants dominate almost every landmass on the earth; there are places on the earth which lacks ants includes Antarctica and inhospitable islands.
Ants communities are well organized; they have communication among individuals, division of labor and the capability to solve complicated problems. These ants behavior have long been an inspiration to human societies and an issue to study. Most cultures around the world use ants in positive way as medication, ceremonies and cookery. In agriculture ants are important biological control for variety of pest damaging crops.
Ants have special strength because of strong muscles they possess; their muscles are fairly a bit like the muscles of other animals. Ants come into conflict with humans because of their capability to utilize resources, for example damaging crops, raid buildings etc. Others ant species such as red fire ant (Solenopsis invicta), are invasive can establish and dominate themselves in areas not found before.
You can measure the strength of ants by considering Ants volume (space of something can takes up) and objects surface area, by measuring exterior of ants body we get surface area. Therefore normal size ants can carry things weightier that itself, so their power is comparative to their size.
Ants have exoskeleton meaning that they wear skeleton on the outside, their muscles do not support such heavy skeleton but instead they use their power to lift different things. Ants and other insects have large surface area as compared to their volume, also their muscles power are closely associated with the surface area. Ants are strong but it is comparable with their size.
On a small scale ants are very strong because their bodies are very weightless, inside their exoskeleton their muscles does not support skeleton and they are free to use all their power to lift objects. Unlike Ants, Humans carry heavy objects in relation to our body weight and we cannot lift objects more than our limitation. Ants can lift heavy objects than their size because of their small size, if we have small size as ants, we could do the same. The number of times a small animal lifting objects is not the same as large animal this is due to characteristics of muscles and the relation to simple geometry.
The other reason which supports this claim is the concept of physics called scaling, the muscles of ants are not stronger than humans but their small size is advantage to them. They can lift so much because of the ratio between their body mass and body size, their small size means they have small body mass then their muscles are very stronger.
According to many researches ants lift objects 10 - 50 times of their body weight in their lips (jaws). The size of ants has advantage to them; their muscles are denser than those of humans or large animals. This ratio allows them to develop more power and lift heavier objects of size approximately about milligrams. If your muscles are equivalents to ants, you’ll be able to carry a small car over your head!.
Posted by: Lusubilo A. Mwaijengo
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