Post by Grey on Feb 11, 2013 6:54:38 GMT 5
One long discussion, far to have been solved at this point.
There are three all-time serious contenders, all oceanic animals as logically the largest predators, at almost any era, were marine animals and that there is a relation between the size (body mass) and the bite force even though some clades, groups or particular species seem to be more adapted to deliver powerful bites than others. The three main contenders to date are seemingly the largest Jurassic pliosaurs, the Miocene sperm whale Livyatan and the famous Miocene-Pliocene lamniform Carcharocles megalodon.
The largest Jurassic pliosaurs are part of several taxa and species, not all formally identified. The largest to date would be Pliosaurus macromerus which could approach 13 m and 20 tons (McHenry 2009). Pliosaurus funkei (Svalbard) perhaps approached its body size (not skull size).
Of the three animals depicted here, they are the smallest. However, according to one marine reptile specialist, Richard Forrest, the large pliosaurs were almost uniquely adapted to deliver an excessively powerful bite, even better adapted that T. rex and crocs according to him.
One of his description is their ability "to bite a small car in half". However, no prediction has been done yet.
Forrest personnally wrote me that there are evidences that even a relatively small pliosaur (skull size : 1,2 m) was able to bite in half a medium-sized ichthyosaur.
The results of McHenry about Kronosaurus bite force at 33 000 Newtons are likely an underestimate and could have been twice stronger in life.
If we apply this to the larger P. macromerus, assuming their skull and jaws morphollogy are absolutely similar, we potentially get titanic value.
One unamed specimen, known from an isolated 2,4 m skull from the Dorset, seems to have been very robustly jawed.
Whatever the future will tell, pliosaurs are definitely in the top league.
Livyatan melvillei is a recently described Miocene stem physeteroid from the peruvian desert. It is assumed to have been an apex predator, and suggested to have preyed on small and medium-sized mysticete whales at the time. Known only from its almost complete 3 m long skull, Livyatan has been described as the biggest tetrapod bite ever and at an estimated body size of 13,5-17,5 m certainly exceeded the largest pliosaurs in dimensions and was probably the most fearsome marine mammal that ever evolved.
Like implied in its description, its jaws and skull are even bigger than in pliosaurs, and Livyatan possess the largest functionnal teeth known from any predator, up to 36 cm, including the root.
No prediction has been done on it or even on its relatives. So we can almost only speculate.
Looking at its remains, teeth and reconstructions models, we could assume Livyatan was even more potent at biting hard than the largest pliosaurs but in fact this is far to be certain. According to Richard Forrest :
The geometry of the jaw musculature of whales is somewhat different.
The coronoid eminence around which the jaw muscles attach is more
posterior in the jaw, significantly reducing the force exerted at
tooth positions. Also, and unlike pliosaurs, the architecture of the
skull has to allow for a large brain, reducing the space available for
jaw muscles.
And to date, we don't have evidences of its feeding habits.
However, on the comparison pic in the paper relative to Livyatan, we can remark the temporal fossea are just huge, even bigger at parity than the delphinid orca, suspected to be a very powerful biter.
For sure, Livyatan is already the most powerful mammalian biter known.
Carcharocles megalodon (less often Carcharodon at now) was the largest shark that ever lived and sometimes regarded as the largest predator in the history of the Earth, excluding filter-feeders, with some estimates of its body size reaching 20 m in length.
Though we don't have yet fossilized skeletons, we have good evidences and clues of the life and predatory style of megalodon thanks to its isolated large teeth and evidences of attacks on numerous, various cetaceans. Megalodon appears to have been a baleen whale specialized predator from Miocene to the Late Pliocene.
Sharks are know to rely more of their extremely sharp and serrated teeth than on their bite force, relatively low for their body size. However, in absolute terms because of their size, the largest predatory sharks displays very powerful bite and megalodon achieved huge proportions. We know too that megalodon was able to torn appart its preys, with no restriction at biting through robust bony regions and its teeth were extremely robust, and proportionnally more deeply rooted than in its modern relatives. Wroe made a prediction in 2008 proposing for megalodon a bite force of 10,8-18,2 tons, which is the highest prediction ever made if we except the one Meer had suggested at one time for T. rex.
However, some experts are not too confident. Chuck Ciampaglio thinks the upper figure is flawed, stating it as an overkill, and that bite force does not increase when an animal is scaled up (megalodon there was based on a 240 kg white shark). Ciampaglio seems agreed with the lower figure, as he used it in a Discovery TV programm about megalodon recently.
Bretton Kent has stated these values could be not too different from the real ones but the fact that megalodon and the white shark are not that related questions the pertinence of their model basis.
This is its sheer size, its very robust teeth and the evidences of cut in half, decapitated or dismembered cetaceans which place it in the top league.
Possibly in terms of overall volume and depending the reconstruction, its jaws could have been the largest predatory apparatus in the evolution.
There are three all-time serious contenders, all oceanic animals as logically the largest predators, at almost any era, were marine animals and that there is a relation between the size (body mass) and the bite force even though some clades, groups or particular species seem to be more adapted to deliver powerful bites than others. The three main contenders to date are seemingly the largest Jurassic pliosaurs, the Miocene sperm whale Livyatan and the famous Miocene-Pliocene lamniform Carcharocles megalodon.
The largest Jurassic pliosaurs are part of several taxa and species, not all formally identified. The largest to date would be Pliosaurus macromerus which could approach 13 m and 20 tons (McHenry 2009). Pliosaurus funkei (Svalbard) perhaps approached its body size (not skull size).
Of the three animals depicted here, they are the smallest. However, according to one marine reptile specialist, Richard Forrest, the large pliosaurs were almost uniquely adapted to deliver an excessively powerful bite, even better adapted that T. rex and crocs according to him.
One of his description is their ability "to bite a small car in half". However, no prediction has been done yet.
Forrest personnally wrote me that there are evidences that even a relatively small pliosaur (skull size : 1,2 m) was able to bite in half a medium-sized ichthyosaur.
The results of McHenry about Kronosaurus bite force at 33 000 Newtons are likely an underestimate and could have been twice stronger in life.
If we apply this to the larger P. macromerus, assuming their skull and jaws morphollogy are absolutely similar, we potentially get titanic value.
One unamed specimen, known from an isolated 2,4 m skull from the Dorset, seems to have been very robustly jawed.
Whatever the future will tell, pliosaurs are definitely in the top league.
Livyatan melvillei is a recently described Miocene stem physeteroid from the peruvian desert. It is assumed to have been an apex predator, and suggested to have preyed on small and medium-sized mysticete whales at the time. Known only from its almost complete 3 m long skull, Livyatan has been described as the biggest tetrapod bite ever and at an estimated body size of 13,5-17,5 m certainly exceeded the largest pliosaurs in dimensions and was probably the most fearsome marine mammal that ever evolved.
Like implied in its description, its jaws and skull are even bigger than in pliosaurs, and Livyatan possess the largest functionnal teeth known from any predator, up to 36 cm, including the root.
No prediction has been done on it or even on its relatives. So we can almost only speculate.
Looking at its remains, teeth and reconstructions models, we could assume Livyatan was even more potent at biting hard than the largest pliosaurs but in fact this is far to be certain. According to Richard Forrest :
The geometry of the jaw musculature of whales is somewhat different.
The coronoid eminence around which the jaw muscles attach is more
posterior in the jaw, significantly reducing the force exerted at
tooth positions. Also, and unlike pliosaurs, the architecture of the
skull has to allow for a large brain, reducing the space available for
jaw muscles.
And to date, we don't have evidences of its feeding habits.
However, on the comparison pic in the paper relative to Livyatan, we can remark the temporal fossea are just huge, even bigger at parity than the delphinid orca, suspected to be a very powerful biter.
For sure, Livyatan is already the most powerful mammalian biter known.
Carcharocles megalodon (less often Carcharodon at now) was the largest shark that ever lived and sometimes regarded as the largest predator in the history of the Earth, excluding filter-feeders, with some estimates of its body size reaching 20 m in length.
Though we don't have yet fossilized skeletons, we have good evidences and clues of the life and predatory style of megalodon thanks to its isolated large teeth and evidences of attacks on numerous, various cetaceans. Megalodon appears to have been a baleen whale specialized predator from Miocene to the Late Pliocene.
Sharks are know to rely more of their extremely sharp and serrated teeth than on their bite force, relatively low for their body size. However, in absolute terms because of their size, the largest predatory sharks displays very powerful bite and megalodon achieved huge proportions. We know too that megalodon was able to torn appart its preys, with no restriction at biting through robust bony regions and its teeth were extremely robust, and proportionnally more deeply rooted than in its modern relatives. Wroe made a prediction in 2008 proposing for megalodon a bite force of 10,8-18,2 tons, which is the highest prediction ever made if we except the one Meer had suggested at one time for T. rex.
However, some experts are not too confident. Chuck Ciampaglio thinks the upper figure is flawed, stating it as an overkill, and that bite force does not increase when an animal is scaled up (megalodon there was based on a 240 kg white shark). Ciampaglio seems agreed with the lower figure, as he used it in a Discovery TV programm about megalodon recently.
Bretton Kent has stated these values could be not too different from the real ones but the fact that megalodon and the white shark are not that related questions the pertinence of their model basis.
This is its sheer size, its very robust teeth and the evidences of cut in half, decapitated or dismembered cetaceans which place it in the top league.
Possibly in terms of overall volume and depending the reconstruction, its jaws could have been the largest predatory apparatus in the evolution.
