【contact us】

The contact usTyrannosaurus rex wasn't one to waste its food. With the help of its powerful jaw, the dinosaur king ripped apart and gobbled up its prey's bones, in addition to any juicier bits.

The T. rex could chow down with nearly 8,000 pounds of force, equal to the weight of three small cars, scientists found in a new study published Wednesday in the journal Scientific Reports.

That's more than double the bite force of the largest living crocodile, which is the bite force champion of the modern era.

SEE ALSO: Drug-resistant 'superbugs' thrived long before dinosaurs roamed the Earth

That's not all. The tips of the T. rex's long conical teeth could generate a whopping 431,000 pounds per square inch of bone-crushing tooth pressure, according to the study.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

In other words, a bite from a T. rex could shatter bones like a ".45-caliber bullet with a mushroom head," paleontologist Gregory Erickson, the study's co-author and a curator at Florida State University's Biological Science Museum, told the Washington Post.

Scientists have long known that the T. rex could eat bones, as shown by fragments found in fossilized dinosaur dung. But they didn't exactly know how. While this bone-pulverizing ability is seen in living meat-eating mammals like wolves and hyenas, it's unusual for reptiles, which don't have the teeth needed to strip prey down to the marrow.

Mashable Trend Report Decode what’s viral, what’s next, and what it all means. Sign up for Mashable’s weekly Trend Report newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

The T. rex's terrifying teeth gave it a major advantage over other prehistoric reptiles.

"It was this bone-crunching acumen that helped T. rex to more fully exploit the carcasses of large horned-dinosaurs and duck-billed hadrosaurids whose bones, rich in mineral salts and marrow, were unavailable to smaller, less equipped carnivorous dinosaurs,” Paul Gignac, a study co-author and an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, said in a press release.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

For the study, Gignac and Erickson modeled and tested how the jaw muscles of living crocodiles, which are close relatives of dinosaurs, contributed to their bite force. They next compared the results with those of birds -- the modern-day dinosaur -- and produced a model for the T. rex.

But bite force alone didn't explain how the T. rex could puncture or smash through bones. Their teeth also played an important role.

"It is like assuming a 600-horsepower engine guarantees speed," Erickson said in a press release. "In a Ferrari, sure, but not for a dump truck."

The two paleontologists sought to understand how the ancient reptile's bite force was transmitted through the teeth, a measurement they called tooth pressure. They did so by calculating the pressure exerted on bones caught between the dinosaur's teeth.

The authors said their study is the first to examine the pressure exerted by dinosaur tooth formations.

---

Featured Video For You

---

Toy dinosaurs chase real people in this ’Jurassic Park’ remake

---

• Social Good
• Shopping
• Digital Culture
• Entertainment
• Games
• Deals
• Life
• Tech

• Get Thee to a City of Ladies
• Uber is in trouble after yet another sexist promo
• YouTube reportedly let Trump supporter profit as he tweeted from Capitol
• LG's new OLED display goes from flat to curved for gaming
• Louie and Roy
• How to remove Adobe Flash Player from your Windows or Mac computer
• Hyundai and Apple are talking about Apple Car production
• Donald Trump's latest retweet proves once again he's an immature child
• Alliance Against Progress
• Best podcasts for achieving your 2021 New Year's resolutions

• Michael Azerrad on ‘Our Band Could Be Your Life’ by Dawn Chan
• Chris Adrian on ‘The Great Night’ by Sam MacLaughlin
• Poem: Precautions by Catherine Pierce
• The Summer Issue: Six Questions for Amie Barrodale by Sadie Stein
• Staff Picks: Life, Summer, Candy by The Paris Review
• Poem: Because my daughters are growing, by Tayve Neese
• Memories of the Kennedy Administration by Peter Terzian
• Making ‘Of Lamb’ by Thessaly La Force
• Oliver Broudy on ‘The Saint’ by Rosalind Parry
• Steak and Poetry from the Rooftops by Emily Witt

• A Wonk on the Wild Side
• Chelsea Clinton rips Alabama candidate who used racial slur
• YouTube reportedly let Trump supporter profit as he tweeted from Capitol
• Can everyone please back off Alexander Skarsgård's moustache?
• The Professional Friends of YouTube
• Nickelodeon's NFL team
• Very excited dog has a ball invading an Argentinian soccer game
• Doting boxer cares for eight needy piglets as her own
• Vanity Foul
• Facial recognition company says it did not provide proof that antifa stormed the Capitol

• The Queer Art of Failing Better
• Facebook blocks Trump indefinitely, Zuckerberg says the risks 'are simply too great'
• Fitbit Ionic review: This fitness smartwatch is no Apple Watch killer
• How to check on the status of your second stimulus payment
• New Iconoclasms
• See the number of U.S. COVID
• A guide to community fridges, from volunteering to starting your own
• Serena Williams wrote a wonderful letter to her mother about newborn Alexis, body image, and more
• Walking Away from Omelas
• Everything ‘The Office’ fans ever wanted to know about Michael driving into a lake