Why are ants so strong?

My point was exoskeketon does not appear to be superior to endoskeleton because apes are so much stronger than humans.

True enough, and I know this sounds like weaseling, but if respiratory systems weren’t the issue, structural strength would be, if insects were merely scaled up

**bbeaty is actually spot on; doubling the scale in a limb means that the weight (which is related to the three-dimensional size) increases out of proportion with the muscle strength (which is related to the two-dimensional cross-sectional area of the muscle). I believe this is a more significant factor than the mechanical advantages (if any) of exoskeletons.

**I was mistaken; arachnids (not sure about other arthropods) use hydraulic pressure only to extend their limbs, retraction is handled by muscles.

Well, ya got all those legs ‘n’ stuff in there. For comparison (because this is the only hard data I can find) from this page on giant ants:

For this ant, the “minor workers” are 3.48 times as long as the 6mm leafcutters, and the “major workers” are 4.68 times as long. Assuming the 3mg number is right, and assuming similar proportions (there’s not that much scale difference), you might expect the minor workers to weigh 3mg3.48[sup]3[/sup] = 126mg, and the major workers to weight 3mg4.68[sup]3[/sup] = 308mg. Not that far off from the real numbers at all.

Your assumption, however, would lead to volumes of 20.9mm10.45mm10.45mm = 2.28cc and 28.1mm14.05mm14.05mm = 5.55cc; with corresponding water weights of 2280mg and 5550mg. Nowhere near the real numbers. I suspect your error is in assuming a width that’s half the length; more likely it’s, um… (calculating)… 1/8 the length.

If anyone has hard hard data on weights and sizes of leafcutter ants, though, I’d like to see it.

The Teeming Millions, on the Fabulous Uber-Roach.

As for the human scaling bit, I took a look at some of the powerlifting records for various weight divisions, expecting to find the biggest men lifting the smallest percentage of their own body weights and the smallest men the most. I only looked at one set of records for each weight class, but the largest athletes did have the lowest relative strength when dividing what they lifted by their own body weights… but those with the highest relative stregnth seemed to be in the 150-230 pound range… the “normal” size range of most men I’d describe it as.

To my dissapointment the little guys appeared relatively weaker than mid-sized guys, though stronger than the big boys. If someone has 15 minutes they could use an XL spreadsheet to look at more numbers than I did… though I suspect as was already mentioned the numbers wouldn’t be vastly different WRT size as humans don’t have a very large size range for scaling to work on… though you would see some notable differences in relative strength with extreme examples like say at 5’3" 130lb male gymnsat vs Andre the Giant; which one of those two would you imagine could hold an iron cross longer (if at all)?