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Showing posts from April, 2010

Phylogenetically structured variance in felid bite force II

A while back I attempted to introduce my recent publication . But of course as always I think I got carried away with the phylogenetic aspect of it. So unless I hear otherwise I shall suspend my fascination with phylogenetic signals and here discuss a bit about another interesting aspect of my paper on cat bite forces. I've discussed bite force a lot in the past so I need not introduce it any more. One idea that is fairly widespread is that bite force is somewhat correlated with ecology and in particular prey preference. This can include dietary categories (hypercarnivorous, omnivorous, etc) or prey size categories (small prey hunter, large prey hunter). Previous studies have indicated that relative bite force (after adjusted for size) seem to have a correlation with prey size categories (Wroe et al., 2005; Christiansen & Wroe, 2007). Other craniodental morphofunctional characters also seem to have some correlation with prey size (Meachen-Samuels & van Valkenburgh, 20