A giant fossil sea monster found in the Arctic and known as “Predator X” had a bite that would make T-Rex look feeble, scientists said.
The 15-metre long Jurassic era marine reptile had a crushing 15 tonnes per square inch bite force, the Natural History Museum of Oslo University said of the new find on the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.
“With a skull that’s more than 3 metres long you’d expect the bite to be powerful but this is off the scale,” said Joern Hurum, an associate professor of vertebrate paleontology at the museum who led the international excavation in 2008.
“It’s much more powerful than T-Rex,” he said of the pliosaur reptile that would have been a top marine predator. Tyrannosaurus Rex was a top land carnivore among dinosaurs.
The scientists reconstructed the predator’s head and estimated the force by comparing it with the similarly-shaped jaws of alligators in a park in Florida.
