Animal Power

I was inspired by this FoxTrot comic strip

image of FoxTrot comic about the 350-elephantpower Humbler

to figure out exactly how many horsepower would be the equivalent of 350 elephantpower.

My answer: 2800 hp.

But then I got to thinking “What other animal-power could there be?” So I came up with a list. And made it into a web page, so that you could find the equivalent of the power of various animals. For example, a 2009 VW Rabbit actually has about 71,000 rabbitpower.

Anyway, head on over to Some Fun Site and try the Animal Power Converter to figure out how other animals compare to horses.

I will note that Bill Amend must have done his research, because as far as I can tell, the elephant is the most powerful land animal. A blue whale would theoretically dwarf the elephant in terms of horsepower, but I kept the list to land animals.

When comparing animals, remember that power is a function of force and distance and time. So an ox might be able to generate a lot of force, but it is not very speedy so it has a low power rating. And a cheetah is very fast, but it can’t move a lot of weight at that speed so it also has a low power number. A transmission could help in each case – give the ox some higher gears and give the cheetah some lower gear.

And if there’s an animal you want added to the list, please leave a comment here.

A horse is a false hope for victory; Nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength.

Psalm 33:17

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This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:38 am and has been carefully placed in the Ponder category.

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