FIGURE 3 Cranial morphology and jaw adductor musculature. Differences in the posterior width of the skull, relative to the tooth rows, may be constrained, together with tooth shape, by biting strategies such as crushing or penetration. The rather broadly-set tooth rows of Allosaurus fragilis (illustration modified after Madsen, 1976) appear to provide most theropods with a sufficiently concentrated bite force to facilitate lethal, penetrating bites. The expanded posterior part of the skull of Tyrannosaurus rex allowed for jaw adductor muscles with more cross-sectional area (illustration modified after Osborn, 1912). This suggests an atypically high bite force in this taxon, compared to most other theropods. The combination of a high bite force with comparatively broad, conical teeth implies adaptation for crushing the relatively greater mass of flesh and/or bones of large prey. This suggests that T. rex may have fed in significantly different ways from the majority of large theropods.

Published as part of Meers, Mason B., 2002, Maximum Bite Force and Prey Size of Tyrannosaurus rex and Their Relationships to the Inference of Feeding Behavior, pp. 1-12 in Historical Biology 16 on page 3, DOI: 10.1080/0891296021000050755, http://zenodo.org/record/3736175