-
Asked by archale to Ed, Kerrianne, Nina, Oli, yoyehudi on 13 Nov 2017.
Question: what animal (not human) is at the top of the food chain?
- Keywords:
-
Yo Yehudi answered on 13 Nov 2017:
I’d have to google this to answer, but I’m guessing that big predators sit on the top of a food chain usually. It’s not really my area of expertise. Also, I mostly eat plants, where does that fit in? Maybe I’m the apex plan food chain predator 😀
-
anon answered on 14 Nov 2017:
It depends which ecosystem you’re in – for instance in some parts of the ocean maybe it is the killer whale, whereas on the African Savannah it’ll be the lions.
It actually causes real problems when we humans interfere with the food web by killing these top predators – for instance, in places where we have killed all of the wolves, you get a great increase in the number of animals lower in the food chain like deer (which the wolves were previously eating). Those animals are herbivores and the increased population can destroy the environment by eating too much vegetation.
-
-
Oli Wilson answered on 14 Nov 2017:
Scientists tend to think about systems of creatures eating other creatures as more like a web (messy and complicated) than a chain (a nice simple straight line), which means that lots of different things can come out near the top! It might be a predator like a fox (not much eats them, even though they’re not exciting), or a giant anteater (hard to eat, even though they only eat ants). Virtually nothing eats humans, but that’s also true of things like bears, sharks, killer whales and birds of prey. And, if we wander into their food web and start bugging them, they might show us exactly who’s boss..!
Comments