Behaviour of opening and closing the jaw found in many animals
"Bite" redirects here. For other uses, see Bite (disambiguation).
A lion biting another lion's tail as play behavior.
Biting is an action involving a set of teeth closing down on an object.[1] It is a common zoological behavior, being found in toothed animals such as mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and arthropods. Biting is also an action humans participate in, most commonly when chewing food.[1] Myocytic contraction of the muscles of mastication is responsible for generating the force that initiates the preparatory jaw abduction (opening), then rapidly adducts (closes) the jaw and moves the top and bottom teeth towards each other, resulting in the forceful action of a bite.[2] Biting is one of the main functions in the lives of larger organisms, providing them the ability to forage, hunt, eat, build, play, fight, protect, and much more. Biting may be a form of physical aggression due to predatory or territorial intentions. In animals, biting can also be a normal activity, being used for eating, scratching, carrying objects, preparing food for young, removing ectoparasites or irritating foreign objects, and social grooming. Humans can have the tendency to bite each other whether they are children or adults.[3]
Bites often result in serious puncture wounds, avulsion injuries, fractures, hemorrhages, infections, envenomation, and death.[4] In modern human societies, dog bites are the most common type of bite, with children being the most common victims and faces being the most common target.[5] Some other species that may bite humans include urban animals such as feral cats, spiders, and snakes. Other common bites to humans are inflicted by hematophagous insects and arthropods, such as mosquitoes, fleas, lice, bedbugs, and ticks (whose "bites" are actually a form of stinging rather than true biting).
^Ferrara, T.L.; Clausen, P.; Huber, D.R.; McHenry, C.R.; Peddemors, V.; Wroe, S. (2011). "Mechanics of biting in great white and sandtiger sharks". Journal of Biomechanics. 44 (3): 430–435. doi:10.1016/j.jbiomech.2010.09.028. PMID 21129747.
^Cherry, James (2014). Feigin and Cherry's textbook of pediatric infectious diseases – Animal and Human Bites, Morven S. Edwards. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier/Saunders. ISBN 978-1-4557-1177-2; Access provided by the University of Pittsburgh{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
^Kenneth M. Phillips (2009-12-27). "Dog Bite Statistics". Archived from the original on 2010-09-21. Retrieved 2010-08-06.
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