Re: Guts-Eating Spinosaurs

[Jura <archosaur@reptilis.net>]

--- "Jordan Mallon" <j_mallon@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>From: "no go" <honkietong@hotmail.com>
>
>>To my knowledge, according to the paper, at least, the bite force studies 
>>of Allosaurus indicated it had a surprisingly weak bite, but the strong 
>>skull of the animal allowed it to employ its head via its powerful neck 
>>muscles like some kind of hatchet to bring down on the target, prehaps 
>>ending with a backwards pull to enlarge the wound. But as far as bite force 
>>is concerned, Allosaurus did pretty poor (at least according to the paper).
>
>Well, that's aside from the point I was trying to make.  I was trying to 
>stress the overall strength of the skull, and not the force of the bite.  At 
>any rate, this topic will go off on a tangent all of its own.
>
>Jordan Mallon


++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Question: What exactly determines bite force? Yeah the jaw muscles of 
_Allosaurus_ were relatively weak when it came to generating a self contained 
bite, but with such a strong upper jaw and neck muscles, would they not 
contribute to the bite force as well? One is still clamping the jaws onto 
something, it's only the origin of the force that differs.

Has bite force ever been strictly defined?

Jura

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