The Biggest Bite
Stop watching Jurassic Park! Stop watching Jaws! Step into my time machine and see a predator with an even more terrifying bite! Set the switch so that we travel backwards through time four hundred million years and we will observe the Dunkleosteus terrelli. It weighs in at approximately four tons and has a body that is thirty-three feet long.
The Dunkleosteus terrelli had the strongest bite of all fish. Its power may even surpass that of an Alligator’s or a sharks. Using its bladed jaws and 80,000 pounds of force per square inch this fish was a vertebrate capable of eating anything it came across. It is classified as a placoderm; an assortment of armored predators who dominated during the Devonian period, 415 to 360 million years ago.
The studies that discovered this information were done by a fossil skull of this vertebrate. They built a biomechanical model by studying the structure of the fossils, recreating the creature’s musculature to see its jaw was highly kinetic; supported by four joints that rotated to create the slamming shut action of its mouth. This study is important because it demonstrated the usefulness of mechanical engineering theory in studying animals that we can only observe through fossil records. Chicago based researcher said:
“"We cannot actually watch these animals feed or interact, but we can understand the range of possible behaviors by examining how the preserved parts are shaped and connected to each other."
If you were Jaws you’d probably be dead meat except for the fact that Dunkleosteus and the shark coexisted until the Dunkleosteus died out. Not only did it have incredible biting power but it was able to open its jaws in one fiftieth of a second. The speed of this movement created a vacuum effect, sucking in the fleeing prey. Once captured, the Dunkleosteus terrelli would slam its jaws shut. The force, great as it was, was only sent into a small area; between its fang tip on the top and bottom of its jaw. They had no teeth but the force from the fang tips was strong enough to break through even bone.
It, as well as well as all other Placodermi was the first jawed fish. The Placodermi died off together in an unexplained extinction. I couldn't even find speculation. Perhaps it was indeed due to their large size and demand for prey that was their downfall, occurring before even dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The sharks, free of the Dunkleosteus terrelli were able to reproduce easier, causing sharks to evolve into different types. The Dunkleosteus however has no modern descendants and its type of bite was not passed on through generations.
I find this vertebrate particularly interesting. Successful predators usually gain their power by either having a strong bite force or by being able to bite very quickly. The Dunkleosteus had both of these features, making it extremely dangerous. If you're looking for the biggest and the baddest bite, search no further than the Dunkleosteus terrelli.
Posted by EZP (13)
posted by PWH @ 6:53 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
That’s a very interesting discovery that a fish had the most powerful bite compared to other animals, especially the famous T-Rex. That’s amazing that scientists can take only a fossil, and then recreate it through the use of technology to show how the animal functioned. However, I’m confused, since the Dunkleosteus terrelli was considered the most dangerous species, by possessing both a powerful bite and quick reflexes, how did it die out? Not only did they become extinct, but also that the shark being the weaker of the two survived. As the Dunkleosteus terrelli no longer exists, was their bite passed on to other fish, or did they evolve into another animal? That would be very interesting to see how the bite was passed on through the generations, if it was at all.
Posted by Guess
The vacuum effect caused by the speed at which this animal opened its mouth is quite an interesting characteristic. As Guess pointed out in the previous comment, the increased power of this bite struck me as a factor that would improve the Dunkleosteus' fitness. Maybe the shear sized of this species had such costs associated, such as needing considerable amounts of food and territory, that smaller animals were infact more fit.
Last post at 11:42 AM
Posted by EBW
How would you imagine they figure out the muscles when there are none in the fossil record? Based off of comparable extant species? Do muscles leave any marks where they attach or anything? That's so crazy and cool that they can do that, having never met a Dunkleosteus terrelli..
Posted by heckers (13)
I love the way this article was written, it's quite interesting and provided interesting facts about this unknown beast (at least to me) called
Dunkleosteus terrelli. This animal sounds pretty vicious, but what does confuse me, is how did it die out? It's suppose to be as strong as a T-rex except in an aquatic environment.
- JP21
The previous commenter had a great point, comming from an evolutionary perspective. Did the Dunkleosteus terrelli live during the triassic era?? Did it also die out with the dinosaurs? What an amazing finding!
Posted by EJH
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