What I mean is, are there any animals that are natural predators of eachother on the food chain? For example, humans eat lions (naturally) and lions eat humans (naturally)(no, lions are not NATURAL predators of humans). The concepts of predator-predator, are there any examples of this in nature? Everyone says that there is not, but the food chain is so diverse that there has to be and example in nature. There are just so many animals out there.
2006-09-13 13:04:32 · 6 answers · asked by Sami 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
Yes, bears eat wolves and wolves eat bears naturally.. studies done on Salmon wolf scat in British Columbia showed a significant amount of Brown bear DNA in their scat and they have been found to hunt and eat bears with intent. Brown bears will also kill and eat lone wolves or wolf cubs if they can. Fish also are a good example of predator-predator as predatory fish will eat the young of other predatory fish and vice versa. ie Musky eat young pike, pike eat young musky. Fish are also quite often cannibalistic. Another example is wolves preying upon Mountain lions and Mountain lions preying on wolves. I dont know who it was who told you there are not examples of this in nature, but they were wrong there are many more than I have listed here even....
2006-09-13 13:24:57 · answer #1 · answered by Kelly + Eternal Universal Energy 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You mean, are there examples of reciprocal predation?
Yes, as others have said, these cases exist. Reciprocal predation determines what are called "food loops" or "feeding loops", because instead of having a one-directional flow in the food chain, you get two species that feed upon one another.
Reciprocal predation is common within guilds (=intraguild reciprocal predation). A guild is an assemblage of animals that belong to different species but use similar resources, and are therefore competitors (e.g the guild of piscivorous waterfowl). Within a guild of carnivores, the relative size usually determines who is the predator and who's the prey.... and relative sizes change, so you get a food loop.
In these cases, each of the competitor species eats the young (juvenile) individuals of the other species.
See here for examples:
http://luq.lternet.edu/research/projects/food_web_description.htm
2006-09-14 00:19:07 · answer #2 · answered by Calimecita 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Parasites, viruses & fungi are often very species specific; in other words, if they wind up in a host animal or plant that is not their target species, many of them will simply die. Is this species specificity what you mean ?
Many predators, such as dogs, are non-speficic predators - preying on numerous species. (the lion ~ 15) An extreme example of predator nonspecificity is the common housecat, which will prey on over 300 species.
2006-09-13 20:15:20 · answer #3 · answered by WikiJo 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Spiders prey on each other all the time. Frogs do too. A hyena alone will be killed by a pack of African wild dogs but a lone African wild dog will be killed by a pack of hyenas. Baboons will kill any baby lions, leopards, etc. they can get hold of while the adult lions, leopards, etc. will eat a baboon if they can catch it.
2006-09-13 20:16:08 · answer #4 · answered by twistedmouse 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
there aren't as many types of animals out there as you think there and there are less and less all the time.
as to you question, i don't think so.
i hope that this helps.
RIP Steve Irwin
2006-09-13 21:35:09 · answer #5 · answered by smartman_06 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Fish.
The big fishies eat the little fishies.
2006-09-13 20:12:52 · answer #6 · answered by exert-7 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋