奇速英语

你可能想不到，世界上最强壮的动物居然是它！

Measuring about 1 mm in size, the armored mite (甲螨) is recognized as the strongest creature on Earth. It can lift over 1,000 times its own body weight.

The Asian weaver ant can lift 100 times its own body weight, while the dung beetle can lift up to 400 times its body weight. That’s like a human being able to lift tens of tons, you know, Superman stuff. But even these impressive insects don’t come close to the strongest creature on the face of the planet, the tiny armored mite, which, thanks to an extremely strong exoskeleton (外骨骼), can lift 1,180 times its own body weight.

The armored mite is about the size of a grain of sand, measuring between 0.2 mm and 1.4 mm, but when it comes to power relative to size and weight, it is by far the strongest animal in the world. To match its strength, a human should be able to lift about 82 tons.

One of the main reasons that grain mites and many other insects tend to be so much stronger than other animals is their exoskeleton. It’s considerably lighter and stronger than bone, allowing them to devote more energy to muscle power. But there are also other factors at play, such as the ratio (比率) of its surface area to its volume and mass. A mite weighs just 100 micrograms (微克).

If the armored mite were the size of a human, it would be extremely weak, due to simple physics. Bigger creatures may have bigger muscles, but a lot of their strength goes to supporting their own weight. In contrast, tiny insects can dedicate more of their muscle power to weightlifting, because they have less mass to carry around.