Data from: Feeding capability in the extinct giant Siamogale melilutra and comparative mandibular biomechanics of living Lutrinae ...

• Main Authors: Tseng, Z. Jack, Su, Denise F., Wang, Xiaoming, White, Stuart C., Ji, Xueping
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2018
• Subjects: Jaw; Anthropocene; Carnivora; Aonyx cinerea; Lontra canadensis; Lutra lutra; Lontra felina; Lutrinae; Pteronura brasiliensis; Hydrictis maculicollis; Lontra longicaudis; Lutrogale perspicillata; Otters; Enhydra lutris; Aonyx capensis; Miocene; Mustelidae; Siamogale melilutra; Lontra
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ph75c; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.ph75c

At 50 kg in estimated weight, the extinct Siamogale melilutra is larger than all living otters, and ranks among the largest fossil otters. The biomechanical capability of S. melilutra jaws as related to their large size is unknown but crucial to reconstructing the species’ potentially unique ecological niche. Here we compare the mandibular biomechanics of S. melilutra using engineering-based performance measures against ten extant otter biomechanical models. Despite a wide range of feeding preferences from durophagy to piscivory, living otter species exhibit a linear relationship between mandible stiffness and volume, as expected in isometric model scaling. In contrast, S. melilutra models exhibit a six-fold increase in stiffness from expected stiffness-volume relationships calculated from extant species models. Unlike stiffness, mechanical efficiency of biting is conserved among living otters and in S. melilutra. These findings indicate that although similar to living bunodont otters in morphology and ... : Tsengetal_Siamogale_FEA_modelsFinite element models of otter mandibles in Strand7 file format. ...