The jury has been assembled. Based on thier write ups, I believe that Rakes

Get Primary “to hit”,
Do not count for weapon focus claw,
Do count as claws for improved natural attack since that feat does assume the creature’s natural weapons are larger than the norm
Only have ½ STR bonus to damage.

Supporters of this…

Behir rakes have the primary ‘to hit’ of its bite attack and only get ½ str. The rake damage die is also smaller than usual but they do get 6 of them....

Dire lions operate like two primary claws not getting weapon focus and only geting ½ STR bonus.

Hieracosphinxes’ Rakes have the primary ‘to hit’ of its bite attack and deals damage like it’s secondary claw attacks

Lammaus’ rakes are like two primary claw attacks that only get ½ str.

Leopards’ Rakes have the primary ‘to hit’ of its bite attack and deals damage like it’s secondary claw attacks

Lions’ rakes are like two primary claw attacks that only get ½ str.

Tigers’ rakes are like two primary claw attacks that only get ½ str. They do get the benefit of improved natural attack claw on these rakes.

Anomalies to this…

Dire tiger’s rake operates like 2 “non-primary back claws” getting weapon focus and ½ str bonus. I also think the 2d4 claw damage is a typo since there is no way to get “2d4” with an improved natural attack. 1d6 goes to 1d8, 1d8 goes to 2d6. Either that or they gave the dire tiger a tiny upgrade from the tiger’s improved natural attack that was already a 1d8.

Leonal’s Rakes are two primary claw attacks.

Skums’ rakes are like two secondary claw attacks that only get ½ str. They get these as normal attacks while in the water, not part of the Bite, improved grab then Rake combo..

Tayellas’ rakes have the “to hit” of a secondary natural weapon and does not get the benefits of the weapon focus / epic weapon focus feats it has. The claws it usually uses have damage dice of 2d6 +11, the claws it walks on and only use to rake have damage dice of 4d6+5 [The stat block shows the damage bonus as +15 though the rake entry says +5].

Just noticed this in the SRD, Is this why so many critters with rake and pounce specify the critter rakes on a pounce...

Rake
A creature with this special attack gains extra natural attacks when it grapples its foe. Normally, a monster can attack with only one of its natural weapons while grappling, but a monster with the rake ability usually gains two additional claw attacks that it can use only against a grappled foe. Rake attacks are not subject to the usual -4 penalty for attacking with a natural weapon in a grapple.

A monster with the rake ability must begin its turn grappling to use its rake—it can’t begin a grapple and rake in the same turn.

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