Do animals with extremely high bite forces have proportionally strong jawbones/ teeth, or will things start to shatter if full forces are exerted?

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Do animals with extremely high bite forces have proportionally strong jawbones/ teeth, or will things start to shatter if full forces are exerted?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Yes and yes. Animals which have a very high bite force also have proportionally strong bones. However the muscles would still be able to shatter the bone. Even we humans could break our own jawbone if we tried hard enough biting down on something. And it is not even limited to our jaws. Our muscles could relatively easily snap the bones that they move although before that happens the bone would dislocate. So in theory you could break your own teeth and jaw but the pain we would feel would stop us from doing that.

Anonymous 0 Comments

They do have proportionaly strong jaws.

Like most thing in evolution, if it’s useless but is an energy expense, it will be selected against. Developing large muscles is a big expense, so if they’re useless (say, too strong for the bones) natural selection would either strengthen the jaw (if the bite strength is ultimately beneficial), or reduce the bite strength.