Zombie bites

ScumLord

Will zombies really be as dangerous as we make them out to be? We've all seen images of zombies biting flesh off faces and ripping people in half but have you ever considered how hard these things are to do.

The human bite isn't particularly impressive. We have general purpose teeth not really capable of biting through living flesh. It can be done with great effort and picking the right parts (ears and other weak spots) but could a rotting body actually have enough power to bite into living flesh?

Individually the zombies are highly inferior to a living person but how many zombies would it take to over power one person in the right frame of mind?

Milky Moo

Yeah I wondered that as well....
Also how would the virus transfer after the salvia has dried up?

SmileyPaul

Milky Moo wrote: »

Yeah I wondered that as well....
Also how would the virus transfer after the salvia has dried up?

skin particles?
anything really
we could even have to deal with a DNA viral infection meaning hair or actually anything
:S
god help us all....

Drunkmonkey79

One thing that always kind of bothered me (mainly seen in old Z movies) is biting someone through there clothes, taking cloth and flesh in one bite, thats fairly ambitious biting for a dead guy!

Setheme

Zombies could be stronger than humans, because we never use our full power (to protect the body, muscles and because of pain). Thats why zombies could be stronger, but anyway, bite of a normal person can crush a bones, but it would take time...
Some movies exaggerate the power of zombies, like ripping flesh with bare hand is not possible so easly (sometimes it's like they had knives instead of their ingers ;P)
Also zombies take too much flesh with one bite, remember, u can take only the amount that fills in ur mouth. Sometimes u see when zombies just catch someones arm and rip it off - impossible. They would knock the person down, no one could stand that steady..

Kess73

The strength level of a Z will be different for each Z. A Z that was in terrible shape or badly ill before turning would carry less power than one that was very strong or in great shape before turning.


What gives them their perceived extra strength, imo, is the fact that they would not recoil from pain as the living would, as was mentioned by the poster before me.


Also it is assumed that there would be no build up of lactic acid nor any build up of any other anaerobic metabolic by-products in the muscles of the Zs, simply because they are dead, so in theory the Z is tireless and could continue to attack or batter at a barricade until it literally fell apart or the part being used to attack wore down.


This, for me, is another reason why the Zs will come apart far quicker than most think, as there would be an almost constant heavy wear on their bodies in the first week of the outbreak, which would accelerate the decomposition process.


The bite issue is interesting too, as a Z bite would be a crushing bite rather than a cutting one, simply because their jaw and tooth structure is the same as ours, so their jaws would only be effective generally on certain parts of the body. For example a bite to a shoulder or back would be one that is difficult for a Z to do. Try biting into a football to see what I mean, our jaws are just not designed for biting into wide items, the teeth would not be able to gain a purchase in most cases.

ScumLord

Setheme wrote: »

Zombies could be stronger than humans, because we never use our full power (to protect the body, muscles and because of pain). Thats why zombies could be stronger,

But they wouldn't be stronger for long. The reason your body doesn't let you go right to the limit is it will cause damage. While not a huge problem with the living a dead body would quickly destroy it's muscle mass by ripping it apart through over excursion.

If the zombie virus spread like the flu and the person could spread the virus before actually dieing you would have a massive outbreak. If zombies could maintain some type of fluid and spat at people or all it's pores oozed mucus that was highly infectious they would be much more deadly.

SmileyPaul

ScumLord wrote: »

If zombies could maintain some type of fluid and spat at people or all it's pores oozed mucus that was highly infectious they would be much more deadly.

this would also make thigns easier for survivors,
people have an emotional attachment to any other person whether liked or disliked. that means people would be more susceptable to letting people continue to travel with them after being attacked "they COULD be ok..."
if the virus spread through touch (although it would be slower acting) I think people would realise a lot faster "this guy is NOT going to be ok"
could help in the long run...
sticky viral goo FTW!!! :pac:

ScumLord

Human bite force is actually quite strong in relation to the other primates according to this article on discovermagazine.com. Our jaw structure is actually more efficient than many primates.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/06/22/who-are-you-calling-weak-human-jaws-are-surprisingly-strong-and-efficient/