Badger3k
Posts: 861 Joined: Mar. 2008
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Quote (dvunkannon @ Mar. 27 2010,23:25) | Quote (Badger3k @ Mar. 25 2010,21:44) | Quote (The Ghost of Paley @ Feb. 26 2007,16:53) | Thanks for the info, Ichthyic. That You Tube guy must have been mauled by a lion while on a safari.
"Lions are so overrated (mutter)....why I never...(mutter mutter)" ;)
Was the measurement in psi's? The video didn't make it clear. This source supports your claims, although he's a little more skeptical about measuring bite strength:
Quote | There is no accurate way to determine the pressure of a dog's bite. Although there have been studies to attempt to answer this question, the PSI (pounds per square inch) tends to vary greatly depending on who you talk to. In many cases the number seems to have been completely made up, or pulled from a source (i.e. newspaper) that has invented some ridiculously high number. I have heard: 1000 PSI, 1800 PSI, 2000 PSI, and "10 times the strength of Rottweiler jaws". None of this is based in reality.
In real life a dog's bite strength is determined by a wide variety of factors. While these include the dog's size and individual jaw strength, the severity of a bite is primarily determined by the dog's intent (i.e. aggression, fear, warning snap, playful nip), the victim's behavior (twisting or yanking the body part being bitten can increase the damage), the dog's training, and so on. Scientific experiments indicate that trained bite dogs (including pits) can bite at a little over 300 PSI maximum.
Interestingly, recent attempts to measure a dog's jaw strength have indicated that pit bulls have much lower bite pressure than some other breeds, putting lie to the idea that pit bulls have more bite power than any other breed. For more details, check out http://www.understand-a-bull.com/PitbullInformation/Urbanlegends.htm
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Now wait for the Tasmanian devil nut-huggers to show up. Or don't. |
The writer is a bit skewed to my mind. Bite strength and pressure is simply the force that the animal can put into its jaws snapping together. The rest - what the subject is doing, does the animal twist its head, etc - are irrelevant to bite strength or pressure, but relevant to the damage it does. When you set a standard for measurement, you go with the basics and forget all the added claptrap - its only good for the kirk vs picard style debates. In my opinion.
I've seen it done for crocs and a few other critters, and it is just a device that the animal snaps down on. Nothing extraneous.
Again, never done it, but that's how I've seen it always done on tv. Even when they calculated it for prehistoric animals, they used a simple bite with no bells or whistles. It may not be the maximum that a creature could do (if you added in extra bits) but it gives a standard. |
Agree. Its just the force developed by the muscles, the leverage multiplier, and the size of the bite area (which is very small).
And fear. Fear and surprise. |
...But not a ruthless, or is it fanatical, devotion to the pope?
-------------- "Just think if every species had a different genetic code We would have to eat other humans to survive.." : Joe G
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