Long time readers know that I have a soft spot for Allosaurus. The 150 million year old dinosaur was the top carnivore of the Late Jurassic, reaching sizes to rival that of the later T. rex and was much more common than its toothy neighbors Ceratosaurus and Torvosaurus. And as estimated by Lautenschlager, Allosaurus also had one of the most impressive bites of all time.

Working from virtual models of Tyrannosaurus, Allosaurus, and the herbivorous theropod Erlikosaurus fitted with digital jaw muscles based on the anatomy of buzzards and alligators, Lautenschlager estimated the optimal and maximum gapes for the three dinosaurs. Contrary to what you might expect from the hordes of cgi dinosaurs that stomp across basic cable