Monolophosaurus jiangi

[DinoFan83]

Similar to the post I made in the Yutyrannus profile, I find it plausible for Monolophosaurus to have fairly powerful jaws for its size (proportionally on par with T. rex in fact) from known data. How I reached this conclusion is as follows.

Estimating the bite force:

I am not aware of any published bite force estimates for Monolophosaurus, so this estimate will be based on theropods with similarly-constructed skulls that do have published estimates (in this case, Allosaurus).

An Allosaurus specimen with published figures for bite force is SMA 0005, with a bite force estimated at 8724 newtons. Based on the estimate in randomdinos' Allosaurus chart (I don't agree with all the estimates but have seen nothing wrong with the estimate for the specimen in question), it is 1600 kg, and has a skull 79 cm in length (this is stated in the comments of the chart).

For comparison, the Monolophosaurus holotype (IVPP V84019) has an 80 cm long skull according to Page 3 of Brusatte et al. (2010), and Greg Paul (page 13) estimates it at 475 kg.

With the skull from the skeletal reconstruction of SMA 0005 in Foth et al. (2015), it appears as though the skulls of SMA 0005 and IVPP V84019 are similar enough in build for their length to estimate the bite force of one by isometric scaling from the other.

That gives us an estimate of 8946 newtons for the bite force of IVPP V84019 with this method (80/79 (8724)^2).

Is this really indicating a bite force on par with T. rex for a given body size?

As far as I can tell, if published bite force estimates for T. rex are accurate, it very much does indicate such.

The same source for the bite force of SMA 0005 gives a bite force range of 35000-57000 newtons to T. rex specimen BHI 3033, with a mean of 46000 newtons. This specimen has been estimated to weigh 6500 kg by Asier Larramendi.

For comparison, a hypothetical 6500 kg IVPP V84019 would have a bite force of 51226 newtons (6500/475 (8946)^0.667) if my estimates are correct, right on par with the given range for BHI 3033. Reply