Sharks have a wimpy bite for their size and can crunch through their sacrifice, just because they have very sharp teeth - and because they can grow to such large, scientists reported on Tuesday.
Their study of shark jaws suggest that the lions and tigers to win hands down when it comes to the strength of the jaw - the shark, but dominated in the water because of their broad jaw size.
"Pound for pound, the shark did not bite all that hard," Daniel Huber from the University of Florida in Tampa, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.
Huber and colleagues have had problems in collecting data for research, in conjunction with the experimental intractability of these animals, "they wrote dryly in his report published in Physiological and Biochemical Zoology.
"The vast majority of data, which came to this study was biomechanical model," said Huber.
They also measured the bites of small sharks, such as sand sharks, and verification of large sharks in the tap and use their power to stimulate the muscles of the jaw.
Their findings? Sharks can do a lot of damage simply because their teeth are so sharp and their jaws are so wide.
"Our analysis shows that large sharks did not bite hard to body size, but they tend to have larger heads," they wrote.
20-foot (6-meter) great white sharks can "bite through everything that you come across," he adds.
Many must be used for sawing motion Break apart their prey, said Huber, whose team studied 10 different species of sharks. Mammals evolved significantly more effective jaw muscles, he said.