why are large predators rare?

Answer 1

It's a ratio thing.

If there are too many predators then they eat all the prey and then the predators die out as well. This reaches an extreme with large predators because they need so much to eat.

The classic study was done in Scandinavia many years ago with Arctic Foxes and Lemmings (because basically all the foxes ate was lemmings and relatively few other predators were around). It was found that as the population of lemmings increased so did the fox population (with a slight time-lag). This continued until there were so many foxes preying on the lemmings that the lemming population slumped, causing many of the foxes to starve to death and bringing both populations back to the low level again.

This basic predator/prey relationship exists in every environment although it is often made more complex by competing predators and rival prey animals. The need to have a large number of prey animals to maintain a viable population plus feed the predators means that most predators tend to be territorial in nature and either live most of their lives separately or in relatively small groups isolated from each other.

The basic principle is the same throughout - it requires a large number of prey animals to sustain a relatively small number of predators.

The ratios are so well established that paleantologists claim to be able to calculate how many herbivorous dinosaurs there were in a given area by counting the number of predator skeletons they find.

Answer 2

It's all a matter of food energy (commonly measured in calories). The plant life on any given plot of land (or volume of sea) stores a finite amount of energy via photosynthesis. Herbivores (plant eaters) consume this energy, but only a small portion of it is stored within the animal. The remainder must be used for motion, digestion, neural activity, etc. This means that less energy is available for the carnivores (meat eaters), who also require a surplus of food energy for them to grow, live and reproduce.

Think about it another way. In your life, food you eat is either stored in your body (usually as fat, though if you are still growing, a large percentage goes toward that), or is burned off through your basal metabolism plus any extra exercise you may do. If you were the prey of some larger predator, all those calories you burned off are no longer available for consumption; only the calories that you stored in your body. This inefficient transport of energy up the food chain means that any region can support proportionally fewer large predators than it can the sometimes much larger herbivores.

Answer 3

The answer is much simpler than all the others: It's because they are the top of the food chain. If you're in this position on the food web, there are usually a number of grades below you, each on of which feeds on smaller creatures or a vegetable food source. The creatures att the top of the food pyramid need successively more of the food items as you go down towards the smallest things on the web. For example, phtyplankton in the sea, small herbaceous green land plants , maybe bacteria or fungal spores even

Answer 4

Throughout time, larger predators have been a favored target of hunters, showing the strength of a hunter by being able to bring down such a large beast. Many species were hunted to extinction and some are now endangered.

Darwinian theory suggests that size is not necessarily akin to dominance and that a creature of too great a size would not be able to survive when all it's prey are very small, and any predator's would be able to find these larger creatures and devise ways to kill them.

Answer 5

ditto the ratio thing, but also, all the large predators in the world have been hunted for hundreds of years. It was only till this day and age the human race became a little more concious of how life works. It goes in cycles. You know, like the food chain for instance. Everyone keeps everyone afloat. Lion eats deer, deer eats grass, lion dies and become part of the earth which might sprout up some more grass for deer to eat, things like that. But if we go and kill all the lions, then who is gonna eat the deer?
I hope this answers your question.

~suki

Answer 6

If large predators were more common, it would unbalance the availability of game on which they feed.

Answer 7

I think it's because they have to eat a lot of meat to maintain themselves. If there were as many wolves as there are rabbits, for instance, the wolves wouldn't have enough rabbits to eat, and they'd all die out.

Answer 8

Because people kill them for the thrill, the skin and the superficial satisfaction of killing something.

Answer 9

because they are ferocious, have large teeth, and may take over the city, just like in king-kong and godzilla

Answer 10

because we are the real large predators......... the human race i mean.... its just servival of the fittest..... we stay on top we servive thats why