JunO;2880077; said:Wow, it bites harder than a red piranha.... though piranha has the teeth-advantage
Actually, that's not surprising. A fish with cutting teeth isn't going to HAVE to bite hard, and actually benefits from being able to bite rapidly as opposed to taking slow, purposeful bites.
If you get your hands on the lower jaw of a fish, also known as the dentary, you can often tell if it's a powerful biter, or a fast biter. Measure the bottom of the jaw from where the articulation is to the tip of the jaw, and the distance from the articulation to the top where it meets the corner of the mouth. The closer the ratio of the two is to one, the more powerful the bite. Generally speaking, the longer the jaw is, the less likely the animal will have a powerful bite.
Biologically speaking, you'd expect the more predatory piscivores to have weaker, but faster bites than opportunistic scavengers or inverterbrate feeders.
They're just general rules, mind you, and are often complicated by the fact that certain fish families have both highly predatory members and either scavengers or even herbivorous members.
