The strongest jaws of mammals – Top 10

The strongest jaws among mammals – Top 10

For centuries, man has been asking himself how strong jaws have animals with which we share our planet. We have already written about the strength of the jaws of these most powerful modern animals like white shark or salt water crocodile many times, so we refer the interested people to previous articles on this subject. The same applies to the jaws of large prehistoric animals, such as Tyrannosaurus, megalodon shark, Kronosaurus, Deinosuchus, or Sarcosuchus.

The absolute bite force of jaw

Today we will deal with the force of mammals’ jaws. Not this absolute force, but proportional to the weight of the animal.

Attentive readers know that in absolute terms one of the strongest jaws among mammals has a hyena, interesting information will certainly be for many people, that among the big cats, it is not a lion or tiger that has the strongest jaws, but jaguar.

An interesting fact is that saber-toothed tigers had jaws much weaker than modern big cats and even many dog breeds.

Relative bite force of jaw – BFQ

The table below shows the popular BFQ (Bite Force quotient). This is the quotient of the occlusion force created by dividing the jaw pressure (bite force) by the weight of the animal.

The effect may be surprising, because the leading places are taken, not by big predatory mammals, but by inconspicuous marsupials, but with… devilish character 🙂

Bite force quotient (BFQ) is the regression of the quotient of an animal’s bite force in newtons divided by its body mass in kilograms.

The strongest jaws of mammals – BFQ

No	Animal	BFQ
1	Tasmanian devil	181
2	Spotted-tailed quoll	179
3	Least weasel	164
4	Northern olingo	162
5	Sun bear	160
6	African wild dog	142
7	Jaguar	137
8	Clouded leopard	137
9	Grey wolf	136
10	Sand cat	136
11	Dhole	132
12	Tiger	127
13	Dingo	125
14	Cheetah	119
15	Domestic dog	117
16	Spotted hyena	117
17	Brown hyena	113
18	Lion	112
19	European badger	109
20	Cougar	108
21	Singing dog	100
22	Arctic fox	97
23	Leopard	94
24	Red fox	92
25	Coyote	88
26	Grey fox	80
27	Brown bear	78
28	Aardwolf	77
29	Jaguarundi	75
30	American black bear	64
31	Domestic cat	58
32	Cape genet	48
33	Asiatic black bear	44