Interesting article.
Weird Animal Question of the Week: How Do Moose Get So Big Eating Plants?
"Food Chain Dynamics
Matthew Lewis, senior program officer for African species conservation at WWF, says it all comes down to "trophic levels," or where an animal sits in the food chain. The higher up you go, the more energy is lost to things like respiration and metabolism.
Plants are primary producers, which means they convert sunlight into energy. Herbivores, such as elephants, are primary consumers, converting plants they eat into energy.
At the top of the food chain are the predators, which eat herbivores and convert them into energy. But, Lewis noted, there's a 10 percent loss of energy at each stage removed from plants.
So "if you're living as a carnivore, you have to consume ten times as much to get the same amount of energy you would from eating at the primary level," Lewis explained.
A carnivore the size of an African elephant, for instance, would have to spend all its time hunting and eating animals its own size just to make up for that energy loss.
And after a while there wouldn't be much for it to hunt."
Weird Animal Question of the Week: How Do Moose Get So Big Eating Plants?
"Food Chain Dynamics
Matthew Lewis, senior program officer for African species conservation at WWF, says it all comes down to "trophic levels," or where an animal sits in the food chain. The higher up you go, the more energy is lost to things like respiration and metabolism.
Plants are primary producers, which means they convert sunlight into energy. Herbivores, such as elephants, are primary consumers, converting plants they eat into energy.
At the top of the food chain are the predators, which eat herbivores and convert them into energy. But, Lewis noted, there's a 10 percent loss of energy at each stage removed from plants.
So "if you're living as a carnivore, you have to consume ten times as much to get the same amount of energy you would from eating at the primary level," Lewis explained.
A carnivore the size of an African elephant, for instance, would have to spend all its time hunting and eating animals its own size just to make up for that energy loss.
And after a while there wouldn't be much for it to hunt."