I, too, was brought up with the idea of the “food chain” with somebody always at the “top.”
But for the past few years I’ve shared an office (at least, when we all used to go to the office) with an ecologist. She’s taught me that I sound like a total dinosaur even referring to such a concept. The idea of the food chain is of very limited usefulness, and shapes your thinking about interactions among organisms and the environment in a way that can lead to big mistakes. The “food web” is a more useful model–there isn’t any top or #1, so there really isn’t any #2, either.
I was thinking cats would be #2, because I think they outnumber dogs as pets worldwide. As mentioned, they are everywhere people are, just like dogs, but there are more cats than dogs. I am not sure what happens if you factor in cat and dog species in the wild, tho.
I’d vote for dogs because cats, in many places, are at risk of predation from coyotes or other local predators. Dogs, on balance, are preyed upon much less frequently – some small ones might but there’s no “large dog” sized housecats to make up that end. And there’s nothing that would eat a dog that ain’t gonna eat a cat.
Beat me to it. Given arguendo that “food chain” is even a meaningful idea ref @Joeu above, whatever we eat the most of is #2. So cattle.
I suppose the next best rubric is something like:
Find the apex predators in each geographical niche and then take the one with the largest geographic extend or the greatest headcount.
By that approach I’d go with Orcas, tigers, polar bears, maybe grizzly / brown bears, and maybe lions. Given the size of the oceans vs the restricted land habitats of the others (yeah, I know about ice floes & polar bears), Orcas win the geography prize.
I have no clue as to these critters’ head counts and I’d probably need to come up with another half-dozen major ranges & species to do justice to this whole idea. So I’ll leave it hanging.
@JohnT. Thanks for those pics. A very interesting look at how we use the land we have. Here’s a different take on a similar idea, but based on pounds, not acres:
Lol, you have any idea how many pages of Google images I fruitlessly searched through to (not) find the barely-remembered XKCD image above? “Uh… perhaps ‘land mammals by weight’ will bring it up… no. Let’s try 'land animals…”
Don’t waste your time in Google images that’s totally a red herring. Just go to the regular Google search and put in something like
[site:xkcd.com rocket] or
[site:xkcd.com mammal] or
[site:xkcd.com math]
Flees? If flies and fleas were to interbreed they would likely take over the number one spot! A really nasty insect that could spread disease multiple ways.
Hippopotamuses are one mean animal that not many other animals mess with.
Attacks on humans
The hippopotamus is considered the world’s deadliest large land mammal. These semiaquatic giants kill an estimated 500 people per year in Africa, according to the BBC. Hippos are highly aggressive and are well-equipped to deliver considerable damage to anything that wanders into their territory.
While humans are an Apex Predator, we don’t mostly eat carnivores unless we are hungry. We eat omnivores - pigs and bears – but by preference when they’ve been on vegetarian diets, because of the flavour. The big exception is fish. We eat, for example, Barramundi and Swordfish and Sharks. Swordfish and some sharks are apex predators, so they could be #2’s.
Though I could happily label the hippo an “Apex defender.” IOW, something you f*** with at your extreme peril no matter how badass a critter you are.
Readily kill humans if provoked? Check.
Readily kill lions if provoked? Check.
Readily kill packs of hyenas if provoked? Check.
Readily kill salt water crocodiles if provoked? Check.
Readily kill [fill in the blank] if provoked? Check.
Apex defender. Doesn’t cause much shit, but takes even less. Kinda like Chuck Norris or maybe Billie Jack. But badder ass.
Thats a complete and utter myth. Meat-eating omnivores and even carnivores taste just fine, and they were aboriginally and traditionally food, the same as anything else. Beef and pork are no different from say, fox, badger, marten or meat-eating bear. Been there etc.
Claims of this or that animal flesh being unfit for food are little more than culturally dependent, irrational biases, save for ultra specific cases like polar bear liver, with toxic levels of vitamin A.