Posted on behalf of Katrina Charles, BA Media Fellow

From the littlest to the biggest, scientists have modelled the bite force of the great white shark and its ancient ancestor, the gigantic fossil species Carcharodon megalodon (also known as Big Tooth).

The great white comes in at a bone-crunching 1.8 tonnes of bite force. And the elastic cartilage that the shark’s jaws are composed of did not greatly reduce the power of its bite compared to bony jawed fish (press release).

The great white, says Stephen Wroe of the University of New South Wales, is possibly the hardest biting creature alive.

By way of comparison, large African lions have around 560 kilograms of bite force and a human approximately 80 kilograms.

“Pound for pound the great whites’ bite is not particularly impressive, but the sheer size of the animal means that in absolute terms it tops the scales. It must also be remembered that its extremely sharp serrated teeth require relatively little force to drive them through thick skin, fat and muscle” says Wroe (Daily Telegraph).

The colossal mouth of a Big Tooth could have generated an impressive 10.8 to 18.2 tonnes of bite force (Daily Mail). With a bite force of 3.1 tonnes for Tyrannosaurus rex clearly “the great lizard was no match for the giant shark” (ABC).

The researchers used the same method that they have used to study the cranial mechanics of lions. They digitally generated three-dimensional models of the skull of a 2.4-metre male great white shark on the basis of multiple x-ray images generated by a CT scanner, reconstructing the great white’s skull, jaws and muscles. They used this model to reveal the powerful bite of the fearsome predator.

Image: Punchstock