# A Comparison of Animal Jaws and Bite Mark Patterns

> Could you tell a bobcat bite from a coyote bite? Forensic dentists measured 486 museum skulls of 12 North American carnivores and pressed their teeth into foam to record their bite patterns. Cats bite with their front teeth in a straight line, dogs with a deep curve, and bears and wolverines fall in between, while the spacing of the canines helps separate species of different sizes.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2006-murmann-brumit-comparison-animal-jaws-bite/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** Denise C. Murmann, Paula C. Brumit, Bruce A. Schrader and David R. Senn
- **Year published:** 2006
- **Journal or source:** Journal of Forensic Sciences
- **Full citation:** Murmann, D. C., Brumit, P. C., Schrader, B. A. and Senn, D. R. 2006. A comparison of animal jaws and bite mark patterns. Journal of Forensic Sciences 51(4): 846-860.
- **DOI:** 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2006.00166.x
- **Access status:** Publisher link only
- **Where to find it:** https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2006.00166.x

## Tags

- **Species:** Mammals > American black bear; Mammals > Bobcat; Mammals > Brown bear; Mammals > Canada lynx; Mammals > Coyote; Mammals > Domestic cat; Mammals > Domestic dog; Mammals > Grey fox; Mammals > Grey wolf; Mammals > Mountain lion; Mammals > Red fox; Mammals > Wolverine
- **Region:** North America > United States
- **Tracking:** Tracking; Tracks and signs identification
- **Methods and technology:** Body-size comparison; Descriptive statistics
- **Data type:** New field data
- **Observer qualification:** Not needed
- **Discipline:** Forensics
- **Year published:** 2006

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** Studied (skulls of 12 species in the Order Carnivora): cat family: domestic cat (Felis silvestris), bobcat (Lynx rufus), lynx (Lynx canadensis) and mountain lion (Puma concolor); dog family: gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), red fox (Vulpes vulpes), domestic dog (Canis familiaris), coyote (Canis latrans) and gray wolf (Canis lupus); weasel family: wolverine (Gulo gulo); bear family: black bear (Ursus americanus) and grizzly bear (Ursus arctos, including the Kodiak bear). Many subspecies are listed in the tables. Breeds are noted for some domestic cats and dogs (for example Siamese, Russian blue, German Shepherd, Husky). Comparison: a human bite exemplar.
- **Location and habitat:** Skulls in the Mammalian Collection of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, United States. The specimens came from across North America: many United States states (including Alaska, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Arizona, California, Florida and Texas), Canada and Mexico, plus a few zoo animals.
- **Topics:** forensic odontology; animal bite marks; identifying the type of animal behind a bite; intercanine width (distance between the canines); arch shape of the front teeth by family; jaw size within a family; superficial versus deep bites; juveniles; scavenging cases; dog-bite deaths; comparison with human bite marks. Inconsistency in the paper: in Table 2 (bobcat), four museum numbers each appear twice (8209, 84432, 84433 and 134439), with slightly different measurements and, for 84432, different locations (Florida and Georgia), so some bobcat skulls may have been counted twice or numbered wrongly.
- **Statistics or models:** Descriptive statistics only: measurement ranges for each species. Intercanine width range for each species taken from the smallest mesial bone height to the largest canine cusp tip measurement. No statistical tests.
- **Data type:** New measurements and photographs of museum specimens, collected between 1887 and 2002. The dates of measuring are not given; the work was presented at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences meeting in February 2005.

## Synopsis

### 1. What they did

Deaths from wild animal attacks are rare, and the domestic dog causes most deaths from land animal attacks in the United States. Because such cases are rare, little has been written about animal bites. The authors set out to describe the jaws and bite mark patterns of the animals most likely to bite or kill a person in North America, the Order Carnivora, to help investigators work out what kind of animal made a bite. They also suggest the information could help in cases where an animal has scavenged a body.

- Measuring skulls. They examined 486 skulls of 12 species at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago: five from the dog family, four from the cat family, two bears and the wolverine. Juveniles were included, because juveniles can bite.

- A new way to measure the distance between the canines. With a dial caliper, they measured three points on the upper canines: the widest point (maximum canine width), the canine tips, and the bone next to the canine (mesial bone height). On the lower jaw they measured the tips and the bone. Measuring on the bone meant skulls with missing or broken teeth could still be used. The idea is that a shallow bite registers the canine tips, while a deep bite matches the wider measurements nearer the gum line.

- Recording bite patterns. They photographed one representative skull per species (three for domestic dogs, because breeds vary so much) with a forensic scale, and pressed the upper and lower teeth into foamed polystyrene to make sample bite marks, which were also photographed.

### 2. What they found

Jaw shape tells the family

- Cat family: the six front teeth (incisors) sit in a very straight line.

- Dog family: the front of the jaw is very deeply curved.

- Bears and wolverines: although not related, they have very similar jaw shapes, between the cat and dog families but closer to cats. The upper front is slightly curved and the lower front very straight.

- Jaw shape alone cannot tell apart members of the same family; size is needed.

Size separates species within a family

- Cats fall into three size groups: small (domestic cat), medium (bobcat and lynx) and large (mountain lion).

- The dog family also falls into three: small (foxes), medium (coyotes) and large (wolves). Domestic dogs span all three, from toy poodles to Great Danes.

- Wolverines and bears have similar bite patterns, with some overlap in size.

- The size groups overlap: the largest domestic cats match the smallest bobcats and lynx, and the largest bobcats and lynx match the smallest mountain lions. This is partly because juveniles were included.

Distance between the upper canines (range for each species)

- Domestic cat 0.7 to 2.2 cm; bobcat 1.1 to 3.1 cm; lynx 1.3 to 3.0 cm; mountain lion 2.1 to 4.5 cm.

- Gray fox 0.9 to 2.2 cm; red fox 1.1 to 2.7 cm; domestic dog 1.3 to 4.8 cm; coyote 1.5 to 3.6 cm; gray wolf 2.3 to 5.1 cm.

- Wolverine 1.8 to 4.3 cm; black bear 2.0 to 6.4 cm; grizzly bear 3.4 to 9.6 cm.

The paper gives lower-jaw ranges too, and the full measurements for every skull.

Compared with people

Carnivores have six incisors and two very large canines in each jaw; humans have four incisors and much smaller canines. Measured canine to canine, wolf and bear arches are much deeper from front to back than a human’s. The exemplars also support an earlier observation that grizzly bear and mountain lion bite marks look similar but differ by species.

### 3. What they concluded

- Jaw shape helps identify the family of the animal that made a bite, and size can sometimes separate species within a family.

- Because domestic dogs vary so much in size, when an unwitnessed bite fits the dog family, domestic dogs should be considered alongside wild canines.

- The polystyrene exemplars and photographs are still pictures of a dynamic action; real animal bites can be very violent, with deep gouges, tearing and loss of tissue, and need great skill to analyse.

- This is an initial study; more data and analysis are needed to understand this complex subject.

### 6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

- A modified way of measuring intercanine width at three points on the canine (widest point, tip and adjacent bone), to allow for bites of different depths.

- Foamed polystyrene bite exemplars, photographed with an American Board of Forensic Odontology (ABFO) No. 2 scale so they could be shown life size and compared in Adobe Photoshop.

- Mitutoyo dial caliper; Nikon CoolPix 5700 camera on a copy stand.

### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations)

_These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._

- Bite marks on prey, carcasses and bones are signs trackers also read. The paper’s family arch shapes (straight front teeth in cats, deeply curved in dogs, in-between in bears and wolverines) and its canine spacing ranges offer a measured reference for interpreting them.

- The overlap between size groups, and the huge range in domestic dogs, are a reminder that canine spacing alone often cannot settle which species made a bite.

- The authors cite Mark Elbroch’s tracking guide as one of the few published sources on canine spacing, showing that tracking literature is used in forensic work.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: A Comparison of Animal Jaws and Bite Mark Patterns (Murmann and Brumit et al., 2006). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2006-murmann-brumit-comparison-animal-jaws-bite/