From nut-cracking monkeys to tree-bending apes, primates come in an astonishing variety of shapes, sizes, and strength styles. Some depend on raw mass, others on explosive power, iron fists or slow, relentless muscles. Here’s our pick of the primates you wouldn’t want to find in a pillow fight… The World’s Strongest Primates Gorilla Getty Let’s face it, you wouldn’t stand a chance. We are talking about the heaviest primate of all those alive. The largest silverback gorillas weigh about 50 percent more than the current world’s strongest man, Rayno Nel, who weighs 148 kg. If you still think you might have a chance at a pillow fight, it’s worth considering that, while a human’s arm span is roughly equal to their height, a gorilla’s reach is significantly greater – up to 2.7m. (It’s not for nothing that arm extension is known as the “ape index.”) You’d be thrown off the pole before you could get within striking distance. And if you’re still in doubt, take a look at this absolute unit… Chimpanzee Get According to YouGov polls, 15 per cent of British men and 22 per cent of American men believe they could beat a chimpanzee in a fight. It is true that chimpanzees are not as big as gorillas. The world’s strongest man, Rayno Nel, weighs twice as much as the largest wild male chimpanzees. But of course, the vast majority of men are not Rayno Nels. Added to that, chimpanzee muscles produce approximately 35 percent more power per kg than human muscles. Experiments in the 1940s showed that captive male chimpanzees can pull a rope with about the same force as human males. Wild chimpanzees are likely to be even stronger. And you can bet they wouldn’t follow the rules in a pillow fight. Human Getty World’s strongest men aside, humans aren’t really built for power. It’s more about resistance. Our ancestors probably hunted by tracking their prey over long distances rather than overpowering them in direct combat. That being said, there is one feat of strength that humans really excel at. Once we started walking upright on two legs, our arms were free for other uses, like throwing things. And thanks to the configuration of our shoulders and hips, which allows rapid rotation of our upper body as we extend our arm, we can throw objects farther and faster than any other ape, even if they have been specifically trained to do so. A chimpanzee might throw feces at zoo visitors, but no non-human ape can propel a javelin 100 meters. In fact, our throwing prowess could stem from the need to finish off exhausted prey with spears or stones at the end of a long hunt. Interestingly, the skeletal and muscular characteristics that allow us to throw with great power could also allow us to deliver a formidable blow. Scientists have calculated that one punch delivered with a closed fist by a heavyweight boxer is equivalent to a 6kg wooden mallet swung at 20mph (32kph) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3936571/. Tufted Capuchin Getty These beefy South American monkeys may be only the size of a small house cat, but they pack a punch well above their weight. For starters, they have disproportionately large jaw muscles that power a bite that can crack open nuts and seeds that aren’t on the menu for other monkeys of similar size. Their arms are also surprisingly meaty and they are capable of wielding stones as hammers to break them and bites too hard for their teeth. This is a rare example of tool use among South American monkeys. Tufted Capuchins are a potent combination of brains and brawn, equipped with the intelligence to devise plans and the horsepower to execute them. Potto Getty This slow-moving, nocturnal inhabitant of African rainforests has long been famous for its grip strength. A rather gruesome historical account claims that a potto clings to branches so tightly that it can only be removed by cutting off its fingers. However, a study of the muscles that power the potto’s grip found that they are not particularly large compared to those of other primates. In which case, the potto’s grip strength has been exaggerated in the past or is a product of more than just muscle mass. Gibbon Getty It stands to reason that an animal that spends its life swinging from branch to branch in the forest canopy would boast impressive upper body strength. And indeed, the gibbons do not disappoint. If bicep size is your measure of strength (and let’s face it, for many gym buddies it is), then gibbons are right up there with the strongest of them all. The biceps, along with two other muscles responsible for flexing the arm at the elbow, the brachialis and brachioradialis (very appropriate for an animal famous for brachiation), are, relative to body size, particularly large and powerful in gibbons compared to other primates. Brachiation is an endless series of one-arm push-ups, so it makes perfect sense that gibbons are well endowed with flexor muscles. On the other hand, the muscles that extend the arms at the elbow, such as the triceps, which are quite strong in humans, are unusually small in gibbons, so they may have difficulty doing push-ups. Indri Getty If gibbons are the primate world champions in pull-ups, indris are the specialists in long jump. With long legs and weighing about 9 kg, they are the largest living species of lemur. They travel through the forests of Madagascar using a mode of locomotion known to zoologists as “vertical cling and leap”, which involves jumping between vertical tree trunks, and are said to cover more than 10 meters in a single jump. With an explosive burst of leg strength, an indri is launched into the air with a force approximately eight times its own body weight. For comparison, the force exerted by a human jumping from a standing position is equal to approximately three body weights. Orangutan Male Bornean orangutan sunbathing. Aprison Photography/Getty As the largest fully arboreal mammals on Earth (a large male can exceed 100kg), orangutans must tread carefully in trees. Instead of swinging wildly like gibbons, or jumping explosively like indri, they move deliberately, testing the strength of branches and shifting their weight with controlled precision. Orangutans are more like tractors than gymnasts, and are designed to deliver high power at low speeds. It is a style of locomotion that can be maintained for long periods, in a habitat where a wrong move is likely to have disastrous consequences. Muriqui Muriqui North. Getty Some South American monkeys can harness a source of strength that no African or Asian primate possesses. Members of the family Atelidae, which includes spider, howler, and woolly monkeys, as well as muriquis (also known as woolly spider monkeys), are equipped with a muscular, prehensile tail that can be deployed with great power and dexterity to grasp branches and foliage as the monkeys climb through the treetops. These remarkable appendages, which effectively serve as a fifth limb, are strong enough to support the entire weight of the wearer. The most powerful of these “prehensile” tails is likely to belong to the two species of muriqui, which are among the heaviest South American primates, weighing up to 10 kg. Gigantopithecus The eastern gorilla might be the largest of all living primates, but it is not the largest that has ever lived. That title corresponds to a relative of orangutans called Gigantopithecus that became extinct about 250,000 years ago. Known only from fossil teeth and some jaw fragments found in caves in China, it probably specialized in eating hard, fibrous plant material. We may never know how strong it was. But with a height of about 3m and a weight of up to 300kg, it’s a fair bet that it would have easily overpowered even a gorilla in a pillow fight.
