Tiny finch’s bite is 320 times stronger than T. rex
LONDON: The Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur, renowned for being one of the most fearsome creatures to have ever lived on Earth, evolved a bite that was less impressive in relation to its body size than a tiny Galapagos ground finch, according to a study.
New analysis by scientists at the University of Reading and the University of Lincoln in the UK has shown the evolution of T rex was not led by a strong need for a bone-crushing bite to kill its prey.
Instead, it had a bite force of 57,000 Newtons (N) that was completely average for its body mass of eight tonnes and which evolved gradually over tens of millions of years, according to the study published in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B. Comparatively, a Galapagos large ground finch was found to have the most powerful bite in relation to its body size of all the animals in the study, packing an impressive 70N of force, despite weighing just 33 grammes.
This makes the bite force of the finch about 320 times more powerful, poundfor-pound, than T rex. Moreover, the finch evolved its mega-bite relatively quickly, in less than one million years.
The research also suggests human intelligence may have led to us having an extremely weak bite.
This is owing to the evolution of our larger brains taking up space in our heads where the muscles critical for hard biting would otherwise be.
“The image of T. rex with its fierce jaws has helped it become the most iconic of dinosaurs, but our research shows its bite was relatively unremarkable,” said Manabu Sakamoto, a biological scientist at the University of Reading.
“Bite force was not what gave T rex its evolutionary advantage, as was previously presumed,” Sakamoto said.
“Large predators like T rex could generate enough bite force to kill its prey and crush bone just by being large, not because they had a disproportionately powerful bite.