A prehistoric Jaws that terrorised the oceans 400 million years ago had the most powerful bite of any creature yet known, scientists have discovered.

The ancient sea monster, known as Dunkleosteus terrelli, could bring its fangs together with a force of almost 5,000kg (11,000lb), making it almost four times more powerful than Tyrannosaurus rex.

Its jaws were arranged so that the bite force would have been focused into a small area around the tip of its front fangs, producing a remarkable pressure of 5,600 kg per sq cm (80,000lb per sq in).

The pressure generated by a 10st (63kg) woman standing on her husband’s toe while wearing a stiletto heel of 0.5cm area would be about 127 kg/sq cm, or 1,800 lb/sq in.

The fearsome fish, which grew up to 10m (33ft) long and weighed up to four tonnes, would have been able to tear a shark in two with just a single bite.

It was also able to eat prey substantially larger than its own mouth.

“Dunkleosteus was able to devour anything in its environment,” said Philip Anderson, of the University of Chicago, who led the research.

D. terrelli has been known for years to have been one of the top aquatic predators of the Devonian period, an era that predates the dinosaurs and stretched from 415 million to 360 million years ago.

New analysis of the creature’s fossilised skull has now disclosed that it had the most powerful bite on record.

By comparison, scientists estimate the bite of T. rex to have had a force of about 1,360kg (3,000lb). The living animal with the most powerful bite is the American alligator, which has been measured at 963kg (2,125lb). Modern sharks are surprisingly weak biters, with a force of 136kg (300lb), but they are still much more powerful than humans, who can bite at 77kg (170lb). This, however, is stronger than the bite of some dogs: a labrador’s bite force is only about 57kg (125lb).

D. terrelli belonged to a class of Devonian fish called the placoderms, a group of armoured predators of which it was the largest known member. It may well have eaten sharks, which evolved during the Devonian period, but it may ultimately have lost out to its smaller rivals. Its size and weight meant it would have lacked speed and agility, and it is thought the placoderms died out in part because they were outcompeted by the lighter, swifter sharks.

In the research, published in the journal Biology Letters, Dr Anderson and Mark Westneat, curator of fish at the Field Museum in Chicago, used a fossilised skull to reconstruct the musculature of its formidable jaws. They found that it had a unique jaw mechanism based on four rotational joints working in harmony, which not only generated vast force but also gave it a swift bite.

It was capable of opening its mouth in just a fiftieth of a second, creating a powerful suction force that would have drawn prey into its maw. It is unusual for a fish to have both a powerful and a fast bite.

Dr Westneat said: “The most interesting part of this work was discovering that this heavily armoured fish was both fast during jaw opening and quite powerful during jaw closing.”

Dr Anderson said: “This study shows how useful mechanical engineering theory can be in studying the behaviour of fossil animals. We cannot actually watch these animals feed or interact, but we can understand the range of possible behaviours by examining how the preserved parts are shaped and connected to each other.”

To the point

A woman weighing ten stone can exert up to 1,800 pounds per square inch per stiletto — 45 such women would be equal to the tooth of a Dunkleosteus

Source www.hypertextbook.com/facts

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