Re: Bite Club

[Phil Bigelow <bigelowp@juno.com>]

First Rule of Bite Club:  No one talks about Bite Club.

<pb>


On Fri, 01 Apr 2005 10:31:54 -0600 Tim Williams
<twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com> writes:
> This is a little tangential, but it might be applicable to 
> carnivorous 
> theropods...  (Oh no, I'm starting to sound like Stephan 
> Pickering!!)
> 
> Stephen Wroe, Colin McHenry, and Jeffrey Thomason.  Bite club: 
> comparative 
> bite force in big biting mammals and the prediction of predatory 
> behaviour 
> in fossil taxa.  FirstCite Early Online Publishing, Proceedings of 
> the Royal 
> Society.
> 
> Abstract: We provide the first predictions of bite force (BS) in a 
> wide 
> sample of living and fossil mammalian predators. To compare between 
> taxa, we 
> calculated an estimated bite force quotient (BFQ) as the residual of 
> BS 
> regressed on body mass. Estimated BS adjusted for body mass was 
> higher for 
> marsupials than placentals and the Tasmanian devil (_Sarcophilus 
> harrisii_) 
> had the highest relative BS among extant taxa. The highest overall 
> BS was in 
> two extinct marsupial lions. BFQ in hyaenas were similar to those of 
> 
> related, non-osteophagous taxa challenging the common assumption 
> that 
> osteophagy necessitates extreme jaw muscle forces. High BFQ in 
> living 
> carnivores was associated with greater maximal prey size and 
> hypercarnivory. 
> For fossil taxa anatomically similar to living relatives, BFQ can be 
> 
> directly compared, and high values in the dire wolf (_Canis dirus_) 
> and 
> thylacine (_Thylacinus cynocephalus_) suggest that they took 
> relatively 
> large prey. Direct inference may not be appropriate where 
> morphologies 
> depart widely from biomechanical models evident in living predators 
> and must 
> be considered together with evidence from other morphological 
> indicators. 
> Relatively low BFQ values in two extinct carnivores with 
> morphologies not 
> represented among extant species, the sabrecat, _Smilodon fatalis_, 
> and 
> marsupial sabretooth, _Thylacosmilus atrox_, support arguments that 
> their 
> killing techniques also differed from extant species and are 
> consistent with 
> ?canine-shear bite? and ?stabbing? models, respectively. Extremely 
> high BFQ 
> in the marsupial lion, _Thylacoleo carnifex_, indicates that it 
> filled a 
> large-prey hunting niche.