Top predator

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In packs, the wolf is also successful in hunting the American bison ( Bison bison ).
In isolated ecosystems, the position of the top predator can also recently be taken by reptiles, for example by the Komodo dragon on some small Indonesian islands.

Apex predator , and top predators , summit robbers , English and apex predator (from Latin apex , summit, peak '), alpha predator , superpredator , top predator or top-level predator called, is in biology are not strictly defined term for a biological species , which is at the top of the food pyramid in an ecosystem . He is thus a predator that has no predators of its own (cf. meso predator ). Adult individuals of top predators generally have no natural enemies in their natural habitat and usually only populate this habitat with very little density.

In recent ecosystems, the position of top predator is typically occupied by mammals. On land the big cats and the wolf and in the sea big toothed whales like sperm whale and killer whale are considered to be top predators. In the geological past, however, other groups of organisms were the top predators, for example in Jurassic and Cretaceous large dinosaurs from the theropod group (on land) or in Ordovician and Silurian large cephalopods or sea ​​scorpions (in the sea).

When the term applied only to very small-scale, more or less completed part of ecosystems that "top predators" are often invertebrates, in cow dung , for example, large predatory rove beetles , in juice rivers of trees predatory mites . If the term is extended to groups of individuals, invertebrates can also assume a top predator position on a large scale, for example the wandering ants in the tropical rainforest .

The human being as a top predator

Although man - as a hunter and gatherer - his status of the top predator u. a. has dropped through the domestication of animals, it is still referred to as such. In addition, conspecifics generally do not regard each other as predators, which further cemented this special status.

Even as a hunter, humans take on a special role in that they show different hunting behaviors and adapt to the environment (endurance hunt , stalking, high seat hunt ), they hunt individually or in groups and use aids ( spears , blowguns , firearms , trawlers ). Man was only able to secure his role among top predators such as big cats by developing hunting weapons . Up until then, humans were at the same risk as other great apes are still. In contrast, humans only entered marine ecosystems relatively recently as a top predator.

Research on prehistory and early history shows that humans, as top predators, can definitely coexist with other species that are themselves top predators. This includes the union of humans with the wolf (→ domestic dog ) as well as the initially only tolerated, but then economically and religiously used keeping of small cats and dogs (see for example the ancient Egyptian gods Bastet (stylized as a cat ) and Anubis (as a dog or Jackal )).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ General: Wolves and Wild Animals. ( Memento from September 2, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) On: wolfsregion-lausitz.de , dump from November 28, 2016