the.com/apex predator
Nothing eats it; it just eats everything else and calls that balance.
means The species at the top of a food chain that preys on others without being preyed on itself in its mature state.
from A 20th-century ecology term built from Latin apex, meaning the tip or peak, fused with predator, from praedari, 'to plunder' or 'prey upon.' Ecologists needed a tidy label for whatever sits atop a food web's pyramid — hence apex, the summit point, paired with the hunter who answers to no one above it.
- definition
- top of food chain, no natural predators as adult
- common myth
- humans count, despite having no claws or fangs
- ecology role
- removal crashes entire ecosystems, see sea otters
- not about size
- dragonflies are apex predators too, tiny and ruthless