What Animal Is At The Top Of The Food Chain

In a grassland ecosystem a grasshopper might eat grass a producer.

No animal eats hyenas cheetahs or vultures. Killer whales are the largest members of the dolphin family and they are on top of the food chain in the oceans. Thinking of its top rank in this subterranean system we decided to name. An apex predator also known as an alpha predator or top predator is a predator at the top of a food chain without natural predators.

Humans aren t at the top of the food chain. Apex predators are usually defined in terms of trophic dynamics meaning that they occupy the highest trophic levels. They have no predators in the ocean and they hunt large ocean creatures like sharks and whales for daily food. The centipede we described is a venomous predator by far the largest of the previously described animals from this cave.

No animal eats the lion but the lion eats gazelles zebras and other herbivores. Food chains are often far shorter on land usually limited to being secondary consumers for example wolves prey mostly upon large herbivores which eat plants. They hunt in packs much like wolves which are also at the top of their food chain. Ecologists rank species by their diets using a metric called the trophic level.

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Killer whales are apex predators which means they have no natural predators. But the true ruler of the sea is the killer whale. The apex predator concept is applied in wildlife management. In order for this process to continue instead of ending in starvation the animals at the top of the food chain must be fewer in number than those lower down in the food chain i hope this is helpful.

For example the lion is on the top of the food chain in the grasslands and savannas of africa. Krill provide the main food source for the blue whale an animal on the third trophic level. In one marine food chain single celled organisms called phytoplankton provide food for tiny shrimp called krill. In fact we re nowhere near the top.

However in the african grasslands vultures hyenas and cheetahs are also on the top. Plants which produce their own food are given a rank of 1.