TKoBF: The Tyrant Lizard King

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No, the title isn't clickbait. T.rex probably had the most powerful bite of any animal known.

Now, you may be thinking "But sss, it was already estimated that T.rex had a bite force of 35-57 kN, which is no where near as powerful as the largest megatooth sharks or pliosaur bite forces.", and you would be wrong. Take a look.

rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.or…

"Bite mechanics and feeding behaviour in Tyrannosaurus rex are controversial. Some contend that a modest bite mechanically limited T. rex to scavenging, while others argue that high bite forces facilitated a predatory mode of life. We use dynamic musculoskeletal models to simulate maximal biting in T. rex. Models predict that adult T. rex generated sustained bite forces of 35 000–57 000 N at a single posterior tooth, by far the highest bite forces estimated for any terrestrial animal. "

Ahem

"Models predict that adult T. rex generated sustained bite forces of 35 000–57 000 N at a single posterior tooth, by far the highest bite forces estimated for any terrestrial animal. "

So that means Stan, the T.rex used in the study, had a peak bite force of up to 161 kN (46 x 3.5 = 161), which is much more powerful than the peak bite forces of the massive mega tooth sharks or the largest pliosaurs. Like all peak bite forces though, the force diminishes to 1/3.5 of its original power a few seconds after the first bite.

The scary part is that Stan is not the largest rex (you should all probably know that by now). If we were to calculate the bite power of Sue, the largest Tyrannosaurus rex, we would get this.

(8.4/6.85)^.666666666666666666 = 1.146
1.146 x 46000 = 52716

Sue had a sustained bite force of about 52.7 kN, which would suggest a peak bite force of 184.5 kN, which blows all the other competitors of biting out of the water (except for maybe Purussaurus but we aren't sure on its size, which in turns makes us unsure on its bite force).

So there you have. T.rex had the most powerful bite of any animal yet known, and that makes it the "king of "muh bite force"".
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Dontknowwhattodraw94's avatar
I was actually expecting Livyatan here...
Did not see this one coming.

How do actually know the peak biteforce is 3x sustained biteforce? Is that a standard rule?