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In the human species, some women ( a meaningful, though not large percentage) are taller and stronger than the average man.

Is a similar thing true in the animal kingdom? Are there some meaningful percentage of hens that would make better fighters than the average (game) cock? Cows that would be better at pulling plows than the average bull? Lionesses that could beat the average lion in a stand-up fight?

The point of the question is are there overlapping "bell curves" of size, strength, etc. so that "strong" females, while a clear minority, are nothing freakish. Or is it true in most (mammal) species that male strength is "off the charts" compared to female strength, except for "freaks."

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    $\begingroup$ What's a meaningful percentage, and how do you expect us to have these percentages? What makes you think that humans are the only species to have members of a sex that can outperform the other sex? Variation between individuals is often, perhaps usually, larger than the difference between the sex average on quite a lot of measures. Height and weight are two such cases, I think. $\endgroup$
    – S Pr
    Nov 18, 2019 at 12:48
  • $\begingroup$ @SPr: The point of the question is are there overlapping "bell curves" of size, strengths, etc. so that "strong" females, while a clear minority, are nothing freakish. Or is it true in most (mammal) species that male strength is "off the charts" compared to female strength, except for "freaks." $\endgroup$
    – Tom Au
    Nov 18, 2019 at 14:50
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    $\begingroup$ There exists a very impressive variety of cases for either extreme case. This of course includes species where females are dominant, without exception. So you see, the variation in biodiversity covers both cases considerably. This is why attaching a single number can be misleading. Let's take the case of some hymenopterans, like bees and ants. Compare the queen to the size of a worker ant. Entire colonies of dozens of thousands of ants live and die by a single queen. These are the most abundant animals on earth by biomass and by individual number. What gives? $\endgroup$
    – S Pr
    Nov 18, 2019 at 15:43
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    $\begingroup$ Outside of mammals larger females is actually fairly common, the most extreme version I can thing of is angler fish, where the females are dozens of times larger than the males. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Nov 20, 2019 at 4:26

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Spotted hyenas are a matriarchal society and female hyenas are larger than males. Also, female hyenas dominate males.

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  • $\begingroup$ they also have pseudopenis. so they are really pushing the look more masculine than males thing. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Nov 20, 2019 at 4:24

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