Dear Luis Fernando:

I am suffering a severe arachnophobia, despite the fact that I respect the spirit of these guys,due to my love for nature. Years ago I was bitten by a wolf spider and can still remember the 'pressure' and the pain of the following cellulitis :) I hope your profile picture might cure my arachnophobia and you find the answer for your interesting question, I will follow , good luck !

Hi,

if I remember correctly, I heard a talk in 2012, where people from Tübuingen (Germany) talked about bite pressure in solifuges and probably mites? The talk was given by Michael Heethoff and colleagues. Try to contact him. He is now working in Darmstadt (Germany). Goog luck

Dear Luis,

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to measure bite force.

An accurate form to measure bite force is using piezo force transducers mounted on a something that the animals can bite. Someone from the biophysics or engineering department should be able to build that for you.

However, that build will only you give the maximum bite force. You mentioned that you want to measure the bite force in different prey, and that is not an easy task. Perhaps you can mount the force transducers in a animal-shaped cast or something like that.

For more information I suggest you this paper:

Meijden, A.; Langer, F; Boistel, R; Vagovic, P; Heethoff, M (2012) Functional morphology and bite performance of raptorial chelicerae of camel spiders. Journal of Experimental Biology 215, 3411-3418.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes and good luck.

This might be a naive take on the issue ...

But: If you record the bites on hi-speed video (with good control of actual frame-rate), read out the acceleration and estimate (or find a way to measure) the mass of the moving parts (the chelicerae!?).... you could just calculate the force at the moment of contact, no?!

(You could then look at the deceleration and probably get some additional info on the bitten "material"!?)

Let us know, what you end up doing.

You might make a scale Model of the Fangs, at a far larger scale, and

use known applied forces like springs, or hydraulic rams.

The fangs should be just be similar to Tongs, or Pliers, or cutoff pliers.

in short, they require a fulcrum, a method of applied force, at a distance

which gives a mechanical advantage, and that the applied force is applied

at a location where the cross-sectional area is smaller ( points of the

pinchers or fangs ).

Maybe Hog Ring pliers might be the closest approximation to

the method of applying force on a double pointed hog ring,

since the hog ring is pointed on both ends.

Thinking outside the box.