Why are humans so weak (pound for pound) compared to many other animals?
In: Biology
That’s a GREAT question! Humans seem really really stupid by comparison to animals like cheetahs or gorillas or… well basically every other animal, right? But at the same time, humans have been around for a really long time – something like 3 million years! – so we must be doing something right. But we don’t have armor, we don’t have speed, we don’t have claws…so what is it that makes us special?
Well there are a few theories out there, but my personal favorite is the “running man” theory. Humans have really, really big brains by comparison to other animals. And our brains are super complicated. It takes a LOT of food and energy to feed a brain like that. So we needed a way to get a lot of food – more food than most other animals get to eat. The “running man” theory basically says that humans evolved to run – not super fast like a cheetah – but to run super *far*.
By standing tall instead of crawling on all-fours like a cheetah, humans can get way more oxygen in their lungs. By having lean, long muscles instead of big bulky ones like a gorilla, we’re able to weigh a lot less, meaning we need to use less energy to run. And by shedding our fur and evolving the ability to sweat, we can cool our bodies down *while* we’re running. This one is *super* important because all other animals with fur on their bodies can’t cool down and run at the same time. At a certain point, their bodies get too hot and they have a choice – keep running and die or stop and cool down. But not humans! Humans can run for hundreds and hundreds of miles without stopping because we can sweat.
So to answer your question, the reason why humans are so weak compared to other animals is because we have big brains that need lots of food and the best way to get that food was to have bodies that could out-run all other animals.
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