6 Days A Week For Most Weeks,

I take my morning exercise, 

photograph Katja Schulz/Flickr, just with a few kilogram on a pair of dumbbells, and trying to lift them it seems impossible that some people can actually lift their own weight, so what has that got to do with the oribatid mite, (Lucoppia burrowsii), above?

photograph S. Rae/Flickr, well this minuscule creature apparently can lift over 1,000 times its own body weight!

this little mite measures between 0.2mm and 1.4mm, 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 tonnes! So what makes it so strong? it is their exoskeleton, it is lighter and stronger than bone, allowing them to devote more energy to muscle power, the good news is that at 100 micrograms it cannot grow much bigger, larger 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, and there is me most mornings struggling to lift a few kilos over my head!