Amongst land animals you could make a good argument that the tiger is the fiercest predator. Able to kill almost anything, and with the disposition to act on it. Or maybe it’s the polar bear. Or the grizzly. etc. In the sea I’d bet it’s the orca or the great white shark. Among the birds probably one of the big raptors. So far, so ordinary. Everybody has a decent idea which critters are the top contenders for predatory ferocity.
I’m looking for the opposite. The carnivore who’s *least *capable. The species which struggles to subdue a single newborn mouse kit, yet somehow succeeds well enough to reproduce itself & still be with us.
For this purpose I’m going to consider insectivores to be non-carnivourous. After all the largest anteater weighs in at ~70kg but eats things which weigh tiny fractions of a gram apiece. Needing to outweight your prey by factors of 10,000x or more to ensure victory in single combat seems a bit beyond the pale. So I’ll disqualify them from this sorta serious, but ultimately silly question.
So: Which land, sea, or air critter is the wimpiest carnivorous predator?
Mods: Yes, this is ultimately an opinion question and therefore suited for IMHO, but I think you’ll agree the GQ crowd are the folks most likely to have at least semi-informed opinions on the topic.
Given that a large part of what makes lions and tigers and bears (oh my) so dangerous is their size, wouldn’t this just be whatever the smallest predator is?
Among carnivores, the Maned Wolf has one of the biggest ratios between its own size and that of its prey. (Excluding vegetarian carnivores like the Giant Panda and insectivores like the Aardwolf.) It’s the largest canid in South America, but mainly feeds on rodents and fruit.
In general, hyenas, especially Spotted Hyenas, are one of the most fearsome predators out there. Far from being just scavengers, they will tackle quite large prey and bring it down, and can alos kill lions. Even the smaller Brown Hyena can bully a leopard away from its kill.
A cheetah may on very rare occasions win an encounter with a hyena, but usually they are no match especially for a pack.
How about something venomous? In very general terms, venom in predators could be thought of as a way of avoiding an extended, possibly dangerous tussle with the prey.
If we are going to allow omnivores like this into the competition, then we need to include animals such as squirrels or sheep, which are indisputably much wimpier predators than maned wolves.
I think this is the problem we are going to keep running up against here. Once an animal becomes an ineffective predators, it is going to necessarily turn to omnivorism. Basically, you can’t survive as a predator if you aren’t very good at it. So any animal that is in the running is almost certainly an omnivore, and once we allow omnivores than we have to let i creatures such as squirrels or deer, since they are indisputably predatory, yet clearly much wimpier predators than any true carnivore.