# What is the highest-level animal that regularly kills and eats other animals? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 3, 2019, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145 "2019-01-03T13:49:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145/42 "2019-01-05T01:00:35Z")
[Yep. (youtube link of live abalone being served in what looks like a Korean restaurant)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPKCNrdkQBE) ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145/43 "2019-01-05T02:50:55Z")
If humans eat bears and bears eat humans, does that mean they’re both at a trophic level of infinity? ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145/44 "2019-01-05T05:09:28Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > If humans eat bears and bears eat humans, does that mean they’re both at a trophic level of infinity? If they’re eating each other alive simultaneously, yes until they both bleed out. Like some kind of twisted yin-yang symbol… ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145/45 "2019-01-05T05:30:02Z")
> [@Steven\_Estes](#): > > I should have made this much more clear by saying that I meant “killing and eating at the same time by the same individual”–which is what I meant to say. > > In other words, like lions and tigers and dolphins, not human beings. What? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145/46 "2019-01-05T05:51:31Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > I, a human, have eaten live octopus. A chef with a knife cut it into little pieces 10 seconds before, but it was still alive and wriggling when I ate it. You have to chew the tentacles well so the suckers don’t grab ahold of your esophagus on the way down. > > I didn’t do this out of necessity, but because it’s tasty. Given the molluscan diet of _Odobenus rosmarus_, a great post/username combo.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145/47 "2019-01-05T08:33:21Z")
I think the answer is a polar bear who is Theta Clear, standing on Gunnbjørn Fjeld smoking a gigantic doobie. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145/48 "2019-01-05T08:36:32Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > If humans eat bears and bears eat humans, does that mean they’re both at a trophic level of infinity? Heavy, man. I can dig it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145/49 "2019-01-05T15:58:05Z")
**Measure for Measure** refers to a “fractional trophic level”, which sounds to me like some sort of weighted average accounting for an animal’s entire diet (and the entire diets of the things it eats, and so on). So, while it is possible to have two species (like humans and bears) which eat each other, it’s not possible to have two species whose diets consist primarily of each other, so you wouldn’t get an infinite trophic level. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145/50 "2019-01-05T16:28:08Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I think the answer is a polar bear who is Theta Clear, standing on Gunnbjørn Fjeld smoking a gigantic doobie. Add 33rd Degree Mason and Epic wizard/cleric/whatever and we may have it. ---
**Author:** ![MattDHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@MattDHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MattDHat)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145/51 "2019-01-05T18:52:29Z")
What about Sperm Whales taking Giant (and, I suppose) Colossal Squid? Since no one can make any sense of what “highest level” means in this context, I’m going for the magnificence of the battle in which the protagonists engage. Certainly, one on one desperate physical contests that could go either way, taking place at incredible and inhospitable depths with one protagonist at distinct limits of oxygen, and the other at a real size disadvantage and the likelihood that rapid transit up the water column alone will be fatal- well, that’s a high level battle. High stakes on both sides in as dramatic a setting as imaginable. Good a metric as any I’ve heard so far for “highest level”. Call it the “would it make a attention-getting movie scene?” metric. ---
**Author:** ![sps49sd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@sps49sd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sps49sd)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145/52 "2019-01-05T20:16:19Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Add 33rd Degree Mason and Epic wizard/cleric/whatever and we may have it. ehh, if you are that high of a level, create your own castle/ dungeon complex. ---
**Author:** ![MarvinKitFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MarvinKitFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarvinKitFox)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145/53 "2019-01-07T04:49:51Z")
> [@Steven\_Estes](#): > > What is the highest-;level animal that regularly kills and eats other animals? That would have to be the Tibetian Snow Leopard. It is the highest-altitude predator that still hunts on level ground. There. I’ve perfectly answered your question AS STATED. The highest, level, animal that regularly kills and eats other animals. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-highest-level-animal-that-regularly-kills-and-eats-other-animals/827145.md?page=2)