I don’t know about humans being “apex predators.” I get viciously preyed upon about eight months of the year in my own yard if I’m stupid enough to go out at dusk or dawn. 
One on one & without mechanical help, we are a long way from the top.
Not a biologist, but I am a gardener so I wasn’t thinking large fauna, I was thinking about everything in nature that makes itself either taste bad or smell bad so entire classes of animals not only don’t eat it but actively avoid it and whose only natural enemy is me.
Giraffes (yes, even adults) can be prey to lions and hyenas. They are definitely exempt from the no natural enemies statement.
http://www.giraffeworlds.com/giraffe-predators/
Not to say it’s EASY for a lion or hyena to take down a giraffe, it does happen, the lions just prefer easier, slower food first.
You’re presuming there’s a fight. The orcas have a hunting technique for sharks. You grab them and then flip them on their backs. Many sharks and rays, when flipped over, go into a catatonic state. White sharks are not exempt.
Plus, full-grown orcas are larger than the largest Whites. Like 2 to 3 times the mass. Smart fighters that are bigger than you make poor prey.
It should also be telling, as they stated in that video, that when that orca ate that white shark, all the other white sharks for miles left the area and abandoned the seals - a season’s worth of eating and they skipped out. None hung around to fight off the orcas - they all headed for the hills.
Given that bottlenose dolphins will attack and drive off white sharks, I’m thinking an orca/shark battle is pretty one-sided.
Harpy Eagles take a lot of sloths. Along with monkeys and opossums they are their principle prey
Sloths and leopards don’t occur together. Ocelots and sometimes jaguars take a lot of sloths when they come to the ground once a week to defecate (they don’t forage on the ground).
Again, a lion pride would RATHER go after a zebra or a gnu.
But if they’re REALLY hungry, and they spot an oblivious giraffe munching on acacia leaves? Of COURSE they’ll give it a go. Can’t be too choosy.
Very few predators ever think, “Gee, maybe I could kill and eat that unfamiliar animal, but… nah, he’s not in my list of natural prey.” To most predators, a meal is a meal.
I realise this is post is almost old enough to drink alcohol in my country, but I can’t help pointing out it’s not true: New Zealand does not have any native mammals bar bats and aquatics, but it has a native falcon, the unimaginatively named New Zealand Falcon, and it used to be home to the largest eagle ever known to exist, the Haast’s Eagle, which could take down even the biggest of the moas, judging by skeleton records.
Oh, and I think the post has mixed up the (not extinct, but it got damn close) Chatham Island Black Robin, and the flightless, and supposedly wiped out by the lighthouse keeper’s cat Stephen Island Wren, which was probably actually wiped out from it’s last refuge on Stephen Island by feral cats and specimen collectors, after previously being eradicated from the mainland due to having no defence against mammalian predators.
Sure they do.Terrifying mind-controlling ones.
AFAIK there isn’t anything out to kill the great wild Gary Busey.
Except maybe paparazzi.
Can’t remember the poster’s name…I was hoping he was still around to let him know that I’m pretty sure a tiger can eat a lion.
Whole.
This applies to me if you’re talking about flibbertyjibbin mosquitoes.
Feeding from you isn’t quite the same as eating you. Something about how dead you are at the end of the process.
I realize certain ants might blur the distinction.
What if I croak from dengue? I might not be getting maowed down on, but the natural enemy is still taking me down.
Not to mention - that world famous Aussie mosquito hunter’s maxim: “There’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded mosquito”.
Also - good “G.I.” band.
Gotta love that dangling bite move. I know he’s trying to tire the sloth out, but it’s like “OK, that’s enough effort for today, you lost so just…become dinner now, fucker, OK ?”
Kangaroos?
(I don’t think they’ve been mentioned yet)
I’m pretty sure that dingoes prey on kangaroos.
I know that something does because of those Nature shows that always mention how the mama Kangaroo will dump the baby out of the pouch if she has to when being pursued.
Oh, and I figure that if the kangaroos linger at the water’s edge, they risk gettin’ chomped by crocs, as well. Also, in days past, they had to worry about thylacines.
Dingoes have been in Australia so long, people forget they aren’t “natural” predators of the kangaroo, because they aren’t native to Australia.
Well, at a certain point in time, you have to accept them as “native”. I mean, many species have arrived by colonization. Dingos may have arrived 12000 years ago.
Oh sure, at SOME point, you accept animals as native even if they were introduced later than their neighbors.
Point is, the dingoes’ prey DIDN’T have any natural enemies 13,000 years ago. But by now, no one remembers when that was true.