Behind the Brain

The fastest animal is a cheetah. The strongest is a gorilla. The tallest animal is a giraffe, and the largest is a blue whale (an elephant if we only count land animal). So why are humans the most dominant species on the planet? Many of us attribute our dominance to our brains, our intelligence. This has led to several false myths about the human brain. Let’s explore!

Myth #1: Humans have the largest brains

This is outright false. The human brain on average, weighs 3 pounds. The sperm whale’s brain weighs 9 pounds, while the elephant’s brain weighs 4-5 pounds on average. The elephant’s brain also takes up 3-4 times the space as a human brain.

Myth #2: Humans have the most neurons

Since data about the brain’s weight didn’t result with humans topping the list, scientists turned to number of neurons. Since connections between neurons are correlated with learning, and comprehension, it is plausible that us humans have the most number of neurons. However, the African elephant once again steals the spotlight surpassing humans with 25,700,000,000 neurons, compared to humans’ 860,000,000,000 neurons.

Myth #3: Humans have the largest brain to weight ratio:

Since all the animals surpassing humans in measures of brain mass, size, and number of neurons are extremely large, statisticians and scientists focused on the brain mass to weight ratio. This way, large creatures would be at a disadvantage.

Since the average human’s brain weighs 3 pounds, it accounts for approximately 2% of the body’s total weight, resulting in a Brain-Weight Ratio of 1:40. Although creatures like elephants don’t get anywhere close on this list, small animals such as treeshrews top this list with a treeshrews’ brain accounting for 10% of its body weight. This results in a Brain-Weight Ratio of 1:10. But this isn’t the highest known Brain-Weight Ratio. Small ants, have the highest Brain-Weight Ratio of 1:7.

Conclusion

There is one statistic in which the human brain trumps all other brains. That is, energy consumption. The human brain consumes 20% of energy produced by our body (around 1088 kJs per day). So maybe the reason we are able to think so much faster than animals, and learn faster, is that our body prioritizes it, hence sending a organ making up 2% its body weight, 20% of it’s energy.