Duck-Billed Platypuses. Trust me on this.
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Duck-Billed Platypuses. Trust me on this.
[/QUOTE]
Those things scare me.
[QUOTE=Blake]
That’s a huge group you’ve just named. Almost every insect group I can think of has numeorus carrion feeding members: wasps, flies, beetles, moths, bugs, crickets and so forth. I hardly think that naming an entire functional group is in the spirit of the OP. We might just as well name “all bees and other pollinating insects” or “all plankton eating vertebrates”.
[/quote]
I know, but it’s the closest I could come to an answer.
I agree, and in fact this effect is why there is no candidate for the OP’s question. There is, AFAIK, no narrowly-definable group of animals that performs a function that is both unique and vital to human survival.