Influential feeding dynamics of sharks and mathematical formulas to estimate the power of biting by morphological data

Abstract

The mouths of some bony and cartilaginous fishes are located in the anterior part of theirbodies, with a slight variation in sharks, which have theirs located in the abdominal part. Thisvariation is evolutionary over time. The force exerted by the jaws of sharks in order todismember their prey can be examined from two origins: .The determined force exerted by teethand muscles and the force as a result of torque arm through jaw distance. Although sharks applyless force compared to crocodile, their sharp teeth and mouth position provides much strongereffect. Moreover, several species are characterized with heavier upper jaw and this enhances thepower. A mouth located in the anterior part of the body would have less force exerted. On thecontrary, human jaw is shorter, which applies much more force. This paper relates the prebranchiallength and power with preying strength. According to this survey, a couple ofpredators were considered in terms of their mouth position, as well as different kind of feedingand ecological characteristics. Morphological data on several sharks were extracted andevaluated by MATLAB software to prove the following deductive hypothesis. The more thesupport distance (prebranchial length) to concentrated force was, the stronger the shark preyedon animals. The amount of torque had significant relationship with the lever distance andconcentrated force. Besides, several formulas have been recommended to estimate the bite forceand torque based on morphological characteristics.