Bite club: comparative bite force in big biting mammals

This influential comparative study estimated bite forces across a broad range of living and extinct mammalian carnivores using dry-skull dissection methods and lever modelling, then scaled the results to compare species fairly. Among living mammals the authors found that big cats, and especially the relatively powerful jaws of species like the tiger and jaguar, ranked high once body size was accounted for, while some extinct predators such as the marsupial lion produced extraordinary forces for their size. By placing felids within a wide comparative bracket, the study clarified how cat skulls convert muscle into bite force and how that force relates to killing strategy and prey size. It became a widely cited reference framework for bite-force comparisons and for interpreting the feeding adaptations of carnivore skulls.