Smilodon Biomechanics

Sabre-Tooth Bite Was Weak

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The sabre-toothed cat Smilodon, one of the fiercest predators to roam the Ice Age, had a fairly wimpy bite, Australian researchers said on Monday, but this powerful killing-machine was no pussycat.

Researchers at the University of NSW and the University of Newcastle compared Smilodon's bite strength to another fearsome feline, the modern lion, using a computer model.

"Bite strength has long been a contentious issue in Smilodon," said Stephen Wroe of the University of NSW in Sydney, whose study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Smilodon was one of the most powerfully built feline predators to ever prowl the Earth.

Wroe said early investigators had concluded Smilodon's bite was weak, but later investigators believed it was strong. Wroe and colleagues sought to put the matter to the test.

They used data from CAT scan X-rays of lion and Smilodon skulls to build sophisticated programs that could compare the mechanics of each cat's bite.

What they hoped to gain was a better understanding of how Smilodon killed its prey.

Wroe said lion skulls are built to withstand great forces as they bite animals that "are trying very hard to escape".

When the researchers subjected the digital Smilodon skull to these same forces, it showed much higher stress.

"If Smilodon bit into prey that was struggling wildly - as can a lion - it would have risked serious injury and perhaps even breakage of its own skull and teeth," he said.

So now we know. If a Smilodon attacked us, it would shove us to the ground first, then plunge its long teeth into our soft tissue eliciting massive blood flows.