The Sydney Morning Herald has an interesting article on the relative
strength of various mammal's (placental vs marsupial) bite. The Tassie Devil
comes out on top. The article is reproduced below.
Regards,
Chris Coleborn
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Tassie devil smiles ahead when it comes to the bite club
By James Woodford
April 2, 2005
The famously bad-mannered Tasmanian devil may have the world's most
dangerous smile.
A team of scientists, including carnivore expert Dr Steve Wroe from the
University of Sydney and Colin McHenry from the University of Newcastle,
have conducted a survey of the dentistry behind the bloodthirsty lives of
nearly 40 of the planet's most well-known carnivores.
The findings have been published in the latest issue of the prestigious
scientific British journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society, and include
the first attempt to rank members of what the scientists call "The Bite
Club".
One surprising result was that marsupials are armed with a bigger chomp per
pound than the placental mammals, even including lions, tigers and bears.
The scientists discovered that the Tassie devil has, relative to its size,
the most powerful bite of any mammalian predator alive. Its "bite force
quotient" is nearly three times greater than a domestic cat, twice that of a
fox or black bear and a third greater than a tiger or wolf.
The results were obtained from a combination of experiments where
transducers were placed in the mouths of the carnivores and also by detailed
analysis of the skull and jaws of the predators. Dr Wroe said the bite
strength of extinct mammal predators had been estimated from their fossil
jaws. Even compared with prehistoric monsters like the sabre-toothed tiger
and marsupial lions, the Tassie devil still picked up a bronze medal.
The all-time biggest biter was another Australian - the extinct marsupial
lion.
Dr Wroe said far from being an evolutionary backwater, Australia had
produced a number of the most dangerous creatures ever to terrorise the
lower levels of the food chain.
"Marsupials are beating the hell out of placentals with the same body size,"
Dr Wroe said.
Australia also has the creature with the second-most powerful bite - the
spotted-tailed quoll.
"At 1.5kilograms the spotted-tailed quoll can kill a seven-kilogram swamp
wallaby," he said. "That's an animal five times its own body mass. Tasmanian
devils can kill wombat-sized animals."
Where marsupials do fall down, compared to placental mammals, is on the
brains stakes, with creatures like cats and dogs trading jaw bone and muscle
strength for brains.
"Marsupial carnivores typically have brains 40 per cent the size of their
placental cousins," said Dr Wroe.
He said the study's results will help predict how the Tassie devil will cope
with the possible introduction of foxes to the island state.
"Bite force is a damn good indicator of what will happen when devils meet
foxes and we would certainly predict devils would put up a good fight."
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