Sabre-Tooth Bite

A new study suggests that the sabre-tooth cat was not so great in the bite department as imagined. From the Eurekalert:

"Scientists from the University of New South Wales and University of Newcastle have used a computer-based technique called Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to test the bite force and feeding mechanics of the fearsome predator.
"FEA, normally used in the analysis of trains, planes and cars, allowed the team to "reverse engineer" designs to find out what sort of forces a structure like a sabrecat skull was able to handle." ...
"Using the skull of a modern-day lion for comparison, the team determined that Smilodon had a relatively weak bite - about one third as powerful as a lion of similar size." ...
"In a range of 'digital crash-tests', the team found that under most conditions, the sabre-tooth skull performed very poorly compared to that of the lion. This would have seriously limited the big toothed fossil cat cat to a very specific range of killing behaviours.
"Although its bite was weak, this is not to imply Smilodon was not was a formidable predator. 'Anything but,' says Dr Wroe. 'Smilodon was an awesome beast -- and what it lacked in bite force it more than made up for elsewhere.'
"'The sabrecat had an immensely powerful body; perfect for wrestling large prey to the ground, and our models show that it needed to do this before trying a bite,' explains Mr McHenry. 'Killing was more likely applied to the prey's throat, because it is easier to restrain the prey this way. Once the bite was done the prey would have died almost instantly.'"

More details here.