Thanks to our intelligence, we humans have positioned ourselves at the top of the food chain. But which animal actually has the biggest brain?
In another example of how size matters, the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) has the largest brain, which weighs in at 18 pounds (8 kilograms), on average. Compared to our three-pound brains, that’s huge. We can all be impressed, but with an overall body mass of about 45 tons (40 metric tons), the sperm whale’s brain-to-body-mass ratio of 1:5,100.
So maybe the better question is which animal has the biggest brain relative to its body size?
The answer will surprise you. According to a 2009 study in the journal Brain, Behavior and Evolution, a very small genus of ant has the largest brain for its size. Brachymyrmex has an average body mass of up to 0.049 milligrams. With an average brain mass of 0.006 milligram, its brain is about12% of its body mass, giving it a brain-to-body-mass ratio of about 1:8.
The lesson? There’s more to intelligence than sheer brain size.
Taken from “Which Animal has the Largest Brain Relative to its Body Size?” by Martin McGuigan (https://www.livescience.com/largest-brain-body-size?).