Strange AnimalsBite Force Meter
Bite force is one of the most quoted and least checked numbers in wildlife writing. Pick two animals to compare, then look at how each figure was obtained: measured on a live animal, modelled from a skull, or just repeated until it sounded true.
Every bite, ranked
Figures are the numbers usually quoted, in pounds of force. The tag says how solid each one is.
Most "PSI" figures aren't PSI
Pounds per square inch is a pressure; a bite is measured as a total force. Almost every popular figure, including the famous 3,700 for the saltwater crocodile, is really pounds of force (lbf) recorded on a bite bar. We keep the familiar numbers so they match what you'll read elsewhere, but label them honestly.
Only a few bites have been tested
Erickson's team had wild crocodilians bite a padded force transducer: real measurements. Shark and big-cat figures mostly come from computer models of skulls and jaw muscles, which depend on assumptions about muscle size. Hippo and gorilla numbers are widely repeated but have no published measurement behind them.
Megalodon, by model
Using a scaled-up great white jaw model, Wroe and colleagues estimated an adult megalodon bit with roughly 108,000 to 182,000 newtons, about 24,000 to 49,000 lbf. That is ten times the saltwater crocodile's measured record, though it remains an estimate from an animal known mostly from teeth.
- Erickson, G. M., et al. (2012). Insights into the ecology and evolutionary success of crocodilians revealed through bite-force and tooth-pressure experimentation. PLOS ONE, 7(3), e31781.
- Wroe, S., et al. (2008). Three-dimensional computer analysis of white shark jaw mechanics: how hard can a great white bite? Journal of Zoology, 276(4), 336-342.
- Christiansen, P., & Wroe, S. (2007). Bite forces and evolutionary adaptations to feeding ecology in carnivores. Ecology, 88(2), 347-358.
- Binder, W. J., & Van Valkenburgh, B. (2000). Development of bite strength and feeding behaviour in juvenile spotted hyenas. Journal of Zoology, 252(3), 273-283.
- Varga, S., et al. (2011). Maximum voluntary molar bite force in subjects with normal occlusion. European Journal of Orthodontics, 33(4), 427-433.
Keep exploring
12 other tools, all built on published wildlife data.