It comes as no surprise that an alligator has a strong bite, but just how strong is pretty amazing? The Force of an Alligator Bite on today's Moment of Science.

Have you ever wondered just how powerful an alligator's chomps are? Well, a certain scientist has gone through the trouble to find out for us. To measure the force of an alligator's bite this scientist and his crew used a pole specially designed for measuring bite force; they got alligators and crocodiles to bite the pole so that they could measure the force of their chomps.

One of the difficulties in this research was getting the creatures to bite like they really meant it, despite the fact that the pole was clearly not edible. Of course, keeping the researchers limbs out of reach from the creatures was no easy task either.

The researchers found that the force of a twelve-foot alligator's bite is nearly identical to that of the pressure of the weight of a small pick-up truck. So imagine that you're buried underneath a small pick-up truck, and you are trying to lift the pick-up truck off of yourself. Needless to say, there's no escape from these jaws.