400 million years ago there lived a huge fish with an extremely powerful bite. The BBC reports that the bite of the 10-meter long Dunkleosteus terrelli could exert a force of 5,000 Newtons on its prey.
The extinct creature, Dunkleosteus terrelli, could bring its jaws together with a remarkable force of 5,000 Newtons (1,100lbs-force).
This performance surpasses all living fish, including today's great white shark, and puts it up with some of the most powerful bites in all animals.
Details appear in the UK Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
US researchers Mark Westneat and Philip Anderson tell the journal that higher bite forces have only been reported for some large alligators and dinosaurs.
T. rex, for example, could clamp down on its meal with a crushing force of 13,000 Newtons (3,000lbs-force); but a modern spotted hyena, by comparison, exerts a force of only 2,000 Newtons (500lbs-force) when it cracks bones in its mouth.
The Dunkleosteus could also open its mouth amazingly quickly -- in "one fiftieth of a second" according to the BBC. With that speed the ancient fish was also able to suck small prey into its mouth. With this "tractor beam"
effect and the poweful snap of its jaws Dunkleosteus was likely a fierce ocean predator. Dunkleosteus may have needed the powerful bite to break through the hard shells found on crustaceans and the bony covering protecting some fish that lived with Dunkleosteus 400 million years ago. The information about the Dunkleosteus was first published in Biology Letter. You can read an abstract of the article here.
400 million years ago there lived a huge fish with an extremely powerful bite. The BBC 
