"What do you mean Hippos are the most dangerous animal in Africa?! My creationist first grade teacher told me that herbivores are all weak little prey animals that exist to be eaten by big strong predators!"
"What do you mean Hippos are the most dangerous animal in Africa?! My creationist first grade teacher told me that herbivores are all weak little prey animals that exist to be eaten by big strong predators!"
Lol, yeah sorry, I guess I worded it too ambiguously. I was more mocking the idea of a food chain as a whole, with predators 'on the top', and the tendency to boil animal relationships down to "Strong eats weak".
It simplifies nature far too much and can lead to some pretty dumb social Darwinist thinking. Plus the food chain doesn't even talk about animals that are neither predator nor prey.
Top of the food chain is, of course, the poisonous fungus that digests carcasses back into the soil.
I would have thought it was the sun, but I think I'm going to have to hand it to the fungus, yeah
This one should be the accepted answer.
I totally agree. I was obviously trolling a bit.