According to different estimates, ants can carry 10 - 50 times their body weight, or maybe even more. Because ants are so small, their muscles have a greater cross-sectional area (they are thicker) relative toq their body size than in larger animals.
Studies estimate that their joints can experience forces of more than 3,000 times their own body weight without breaking.
The engineers are studying whether similar joints might enable future robots to mimic the ant's weight-lifting ability on earth and in space.