muscular caterpillars

[skilban]

i recently heard off a friend of mine that caterpillars actually have more % of muscle in their body than humans do, is this true? or is he winding me up, thanks in advance

[Chris4]

Think about how they move. I can see how it might be true.

[James]

You sound suprised, do humans have a high % of muscle compared to the rest of the animal kingdom?

[MrMistery]

James has a point... Plus do not forget that humans have an internal skeleton and nervous system... Whereas caterpillars do not have bones, and have a very poorly developed nervous system

[Natldnel]

Yes this is true. A caterpillar's body is almost completely covered with muscles. If you think about it, it uses it's entire body to move, so this is possible. If you talk about number of muscles, with all it's segments and legs, it would have many more differentiated muscles than a human.

In fact humans have 600+ muscles if my memory serves me right, and a caterpillar has over 4000...

[MrMistery]

665 is the number i remember... Of course, i could be wrong

[Natldnel]

Lol yeahh... Something like that... I can't remember the exact number...