The Purussaurus brasilienses could measure up to 12.5m in length
A prehistoric caiman that lived in the Amazon region about eight million years ago had a bite twice as powerful as that of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Brazilian scientists say.
A team of Brazilian paleontologists calculated the strength of a bite by the Purussaurus brasiliensis, a reptile that lived in the Late Miocene period.
They said it could exert a pressure up to 11.5 tonnes.
That is 20 times the strength of a white shark's bite.
Tito Aureliano, one of the co-authors of the study, said the animal's head was better structured for biting than that of the T-Rex.
The Purussaurus's stout and robust skull with conical teeth were made for gripping large prey.
The findings by the team drawn from a number of research and academic institutions [b]were published in the online Plos One journalhttp://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0117944.
Purussaurus brasiliensis could reach a length of more than 12.5m (41ft), longer than a London bus, and was an unrivalled predator in its wetland habitat, the researchers said.[/b]
Roughly 66 million years have passed since the last T-Rex roamed the earth
"The Purussaurus and the Tyrannosaurus lived in different ages but there is no doubt that the Purussaurus would have won a fight between the two of them," Aline Ghilardi, one of the co-authors of the study, told BBC Brasil.
The paleontologist from Rio de Janeiro's Federal University said that while the Purussaurus was discovered in the 19th Century, it had been not been the focus of much scientific study despite its dominance in the Amazon region during its heyday.
Ms Ghilardi said that while it may have had no natural predators, the Purussaurus fell victim to the geological movements that led to the rise of the Andes mountain range.
"The rise of the Andes changed everything for the Purossaurus, which previously thrived on the presence of huge mammals in the regions," she said.
The reptile needed more than 40kg of meat a day, 20 times the amount modern-day alligators eat, she explained.
"The swamplands were radically changed and the led to the demise of several species," she added.
Source:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-31644163
Purussaurus
Purussaurus is an extinct genus of giant caiman that lived in South America during the Miocene epoch, 8 million years ago. It is known from skull material found in the Brazilian, Colombian and Peruvian Amazonia, and northern Venezuela.
The estimated skull length for one large individual of the type species P. brasiliensis is 1,400 millimetres (55 in). Paleontologists estimate that P. brasiliensis reached around 12.5 metres (41 ft) in length, weighing around 8.4 metric tons, with a mean daily food intake of 40.6 kg.
Bite force has been estimated to be around 69,000 N (around 7 metric tons-force).
The large size and estimated strength of this animal appears to have allowed it to include a wide range of prey in its diet, making it an apex predator in its ecosystem. As an adult, it would have preyed upon large to very large vertebrates with no real competition from sympatric, smaller, carnivores. Researchers have proposed that the large size of Purussaurus, though offering many advantages, may also have led to its vulnerability. The constantly changing environment on a large geological scale may have reduced its long-term survival, favoring smaller species more resilient to ecological shifts.
Purussaurus is one of the largest known crocodyliformes ever to have existed. Three other extinct crocodyliformes, Sarcosuchus, Deinosuchus, and Rhamphosuchus had similar body sizes. Sarcosuchus and Deinosuchus had similar proportions, but both were geologically much older, dating from the Early and Late Cretaceous, respectively. Rhamphosuchus lived around the same time as Purussaurus, but was slightly smaller, had a more gharial-like snout and lived in India. During the summer of 2005, a Franco-Peruvian expedition (the Fitzcarrald expedition) found new fossils of Purussaurus in the Peruvian Amazon (600 km from Lima).
Analysis of a biomechanical model of the skull of Purussaurus indicated that it was capable of performing the "death roll" maneuver used by extant crocodilians to subdue and dismember their prey
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purussaurus
T-rex are like The Undertaker from pre-history, every predator want's to have a match with them.