Whose brain is the largest relative to body size? Detailed answer

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Whose brain is the largest relative to body size? Detailed answer

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Did you know?

Whose brain is the largest relative to body size?

a) Elephant.
b) Dolphin.
c) Ant.
d) human.

Formic.

The brain of an ant is approximately 6% of the total body weight of an insect. If you apply the same proportions to a human head, it will become three times larger and you and I will look like some kind of cyber mutants.

The average human brain weighs 1,6 kg, which is just over 2% of our body weight. The ant brain weighs approximately 0,3 mg. Although the number of neurons in an ant's brain is only a tiny fraction of the number of neurons in a human's brain, an ant colony is a true superorganism. An average-sized anthill of 40 individuals has about the same number of brain cells as a person.

Ants appeared 130 million years ago, and while we're being smart here, something like 10 trillion of these insects are prowling the earth. The total mass of all ants on the planet is slightly larger than the total mass of people.

To date, approximately 8000 species of ants are known. Ants make up 1% of all insects on the planet. The total number of insects in the world is estimated at one quintillion (or 1).

An ant sleeps only a few minutes a day and can survive under water for nineteen days. The forest red ant is able to do without a head for twenty-four days. However, an ant cannot live alone, outside the colony - even with a head, even without.

Apparently, ants have a photographic memory that helps them navigate in space. They seem to take pictures of conspicuous objects of the surrounding area. Scientists still don't understand how an ant's tiny brain can store so much information.

Ants are not stronger than humans. And although the ant is indeed capable of lifting a load many times its own weight, this is only because it is small. The smaller the animal, the stronger its muscles in relation to body weight. If people were the same size as ants, they would be just as strong.

Author: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

What is a sleep disorder?

Sleep disorder is a very serious disease. It is distributed mainly in Africa among people and animals. The infection is caused by parasites called trypanosomes. Their peddler is the tsetse fly, well known in many parts of central Africa.

Tsetse carries parasites when it bites a sick person or animal. Trypanosomes enter the insect's stomach and begin to multiply. Then, through the salivary glands, they enter the mouth of the insect. Here microbes develop to such forms that they can infect a person.

At the moment of an insect bite, parasites get under the skin of a person. A tiny sore appears. For the next three weeks, trypanosomes circulate in the blood. At this time, the infected person begins bouts of fever, often the skin becomes covered with a rash. The brain is slightly swollen.

In some parts of Africa, the infection ends and the patient recovers. But in Zimbabwe and Malawi, the disease is more serious. Within a year, the patient develops symptoms of brain damage. The patient experiences a severe headache, becomes excitable, uncontrollable actions appear.

Then comes the next stage. The patient becomes very calm and falls asleep. He has been unconscious for a long time. The patient is still feverish. Finally, paralysis sets in, the body is extremely exhausted, and death occurs. The cause of unconsciousness is the penetration of infection into the cerebral cortex. There may be other causes of brain inflammation.

The described disease is called "encephalitis". African sleep disease is just a severe form of encephalitis. It should be noted that the microbes that cause sleeping sickness are not transmitted by tsetse to offspring. Thus, death by bite occurs only if the tsetse fly has previously bitten a sick person or sick animal.

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