Biting Down

"It turns out that T. rex's physical size might not have been the only thing we underestimated. A new study suggests that the king of apex predators may have also possessed the most powerful jaws in history.

The study was conducted by a team at the University of Liverpool which employed a new estimation method by reverse-engineering the animal's bite force-much the same way dinosaurs' running speeds have been determined from indirect evidence. Previous estimates put the T. rex's bite force in the 8,000 to 13,400 Newton-range. However, using the updated models, the team estimated that T. rex may have chomped down on its prey with as much as 57,000 Newtons of force."

Compared to scaled-up versions of skulls from other predators, nothing else even came close. 57,000 N is about 13,000 lbs of force. That's biting down on something with a force equivalent to the weight of a full-grown male African elephant.