Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean stronger says Ben Garrod. In fact its the smaller animals that have the strongest skeletons
The largest skeleton on Earth belongs to the blue whale, the heaviest animal on the planet at 190 tonnes. In contrast, the heaviest animal that ever lived on land is the recently discovered titanosaur, whose skeleton must have been incredibly powerful to support its 70-tonne bodyweight.
Today, unsurprisingly, the heaviest land animal is the elephant, but it doesn’t have the strongest skeleton.
Biggest, however, doesn’t necessarily mean strongest – particularly for blue whales, since being suspended in water lightens the load.
Which species has the strongest skeleton?
Proportionally speaking, the world’s strongest skeletons belong to far smaller contenders. A roe deer’s femur, for example, can support over 1.5 tonnes, but the winners are probably the hero shrews Scutisorex somereni and S. thori, super-tough little mammals that inhabit the forests of Central Africa.
The animals were often sought by members of Congolese tribes for a ritual that involved standing on a live individual for five minutes. Thanks to their incredibly rigid and interlocking bones, the shrews were left unharmed, albeit possibly a little confused.
Main image © J.A. Allen, Herbet Lang, James Paul Chapin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons