STRENGTH OF INSECTS.
If asked to name the strongest animal, most persons begin with the largest, the elephant, and continue with oxen, horses, etc. This is, of course, correct in so far as their total horsepower is concerned; but for real strength, proportioned to the size and Weight of the animal, one must go to the insect world. Compared with insects, the strength of almost any large animal, and especially of man, is absurd. A man is considered strong if he can drag a mass weighing three or four times as much as himself, but the beetle will walk with 500 times his own weight. If a man were placed'under a wooden box with five times his weight on top to hold it/down,, he would remain there indefinitely,, but, to retain a stag beetle prisoner in th» same way, one must pile^on top_ of the box at least 1800 times its weight.
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Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 28 August 1912, Page 7
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152STRENGTH OF INSECTS. Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 28 August 1912, Page 7
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