by Playfuls Staff |
29th November 2006
The scariest fish ever is now extinct, but its bite rivals that of large alligators and Tyrannosaurus rex, making it one very terrifying predator.
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This animal of the ancient sea had the most powerful jaws of any fish that ever lived, more impressive even than that of the biggest great white shark. Scientists at the Field Museum and the University of Chicago are offering the world a view into the life and ways of a 400 million year old fish, the Dunkleosteus terrelli that “roamed” the waters with its great length of 33 feet and weight of 4 tons.
It has been known for years that this was a dominant predator, but the new report, to be published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters on November 29 reveals some compelling details about the marine predator: the force of its bite was remarkably powerful: 11,000 pounds, at an incredible force of 80,000 pounds per square inch. Even more surprising for the researchers was how fast the fish was. Dunkleosteus terrelli could open its mouth very quickly - in just one fiftieth of a second - which created a strong suction force, pulling fast prey into its mouth. With both a powerful bite and a fast bite, this predator was not something to escape from.
“The most interesting part of this work for me was discovering that this heavily armored fish was both fast during jaw opening and quite powerful during jaw closing,” said Mark Westneat, Curator of Fishes at The Field Museum and co-author of the paper. “This is possible due to the unique engineering design of its skull and different muscles used for opening and closing. And it made this fish into one of the first true apex predators seen in the vertebrate fossil record.”
The fish was a placoderms, a diverse group of armored fishes that dominated aquatic ecosystems during the Devonian, from 415 million to 360 million years ago. Dunkleosteus’ bladed jaws suggest that it was among the first vertebrates to use rapid mouth opening and a powerful bite to capture and fragment evasive prey prior to ingestion, being able to feast on armored aquatic animals that also lived during the Devonian, including sharks, arthropods, ammonoids, and others protected by cuticle, calcium carbonate, or dermal bone.
Scientists used the fossilized skull of a Dunkleosteus terrelli to recreate the musculature of the ancient fish. This biomechanical model showed the jaw’s force and motion, and revealed a highly kinetic skull driven by a unique mechanism based on four rotational joints working in harmony.
“Dunkleosteus was able to devour anything in its environment,” said Philip Anderson, at the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago and lead author of the research. The bladed jaws, capable of ripping apart prey larger than its own mouth, is a feature sharks didn’t develop until 100 million years later.
“Overall, this study shows how useful mechanical engineering theory can be in studying the behavior of fossil animals,” he added. “We cannot actually watch these animals feed or interact, but we can understand the range of possible behaviors by examining how the preserved parts are shaped and connected to each other.”
"This thing was capable of biting anything it came across in half," said study co-author Mark Westneat, associate curator of zoology, fish evolution and biomechanics at the Field Museum.
Adam Summers, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California at Irvine, says “It would have been an awe-inspiring predator. We have nothing like that anymore.”
Image Credit
: Photograph by Michael LaBarbera, courtesy of The Field Museum
