The Animal With The Strongest Bite Chomps Down With A Force Of Over 16,000 Newtons

Anyone who’s been on the receiving end of a toddler or puppy chomp might argue that it feels like the strongest bite ever, but which animal really has the most powerful bite of them all?

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And the crown goes to…

The animal with the strongest bite ever documented in scientific literature is the saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), recorded during a 2012 study of the bite forces of all 23 living crocodilians – the group that includes the true crocodiles, alligators, caimans, gharials, and false gharials.

Unsurprisingly, many of them were capable of pretty forceful chomps, but none of them came even remotely close to the bite of one particular saltwater croc, who came out on top with a bite force of 16,414 Newtons (N). 

If you need a frame of reference for just how powerful that is, it takes around 4,000 N to break a human femur, one of the strongest bones in the body. That means that, in the unlucky circumstance that a leg ends up in the jaws of a saltwater crocodile, best believe the reptile could make light work of it.

Are there other contenders?

If we search outside of the scientific literature, the Nile crocodile comes up as another possible contender for the animal with the strongest bite. In an episode of National Geographic’s Dangerous Encounters, for example, herpetologist Dr Brady Barr recorded a Nile crocodile chomping down with a force of 5,000 psi, or around 22,000 N. 

Great white sharks could be thrown into the mix too, based on a 2008 modeling study that estimated the fish’s maximum bite force by digitally reconstructing its jaws. From this, they predicted that a 6.4-meter, 3.3-tonne great white could produce a bite force of 18,216 N using its back teeth. 

That would put it far above both the saltwater and Nile crocs, although if we start bringing extinct species into the fold, 18,000 N seems like a gentle nibble compared to the estimated 108,514 to 182,201 N bite of Megalodon. Let’s be glad they’re definitely not still out there.

The problem with the great white study is that this is just an estimate – actually getting into the jaws of a great white shark to measure its bite in real life is easier said than done, so we can’t yet say for certain that it beats out the other candidates.

So, who wants to go and find out for sure? We’ll let you go first…