Humans found to prey on approximately one-third of all vertebrate species (2024)

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Humans found to prey on approximately one-third of all vertebrate species? ›

The team's analysis revealed that humans target some 15,000 vertebrate species, amounting to one third of all such species on Earth. That's anywhere from five to 300 times the number of species targeted by other predators with a wide geographical range, such as sharks, birds of prey and mammalian carnivores.

However, they are not the only predators that will attack humans if given the chance; a wide variety of species have also been known to adopt humans as usual prey, including various bears, spotted and striped hyenas, and Komodo dragons.

And they found that more than half of all the terrestrial species preyed on by humans are part of the pet trade. Also, humans hunt approximately 358 species of finned fish for sport and 452 species of birds—and 207 species of mammals and fish are used for clothing.

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the score of a primary producer (a plant) and 5 being a pure apex predator (a animal that only eats meat and has few or no predators of its own, like a tiger, crocodile or boa constrictor), they found that based on diet, humans score a 2.21—roughly equal to an anchovy or pig.

In these systems, humans mainly eat predatory fish and have a fractional trophic level of 4.65 and 4.5, respectively, which in Roopnarine's view makes those humans apex predators. In 2021, Miki Ben-Dor and colleagues compared human biology to that of animals at various trophic levels.

Most recently, a tiger in the Indian state of Maharashtra was hunted down and killed after eating thirteen people over a two-year timespan. 3. Crocodiles. Though concrete data is hard to come by, it's thought that crocodiles are responsible for more human deaths by direct attack than any other predator.

Yes, it is possible for a human to defeat a hyena in a battle, but it would be extremely challenging and dangerous. Hyenas are powerful predators known for their strength, agility, and dangerous bite.

Larger primates, such as humans and chimps, live in groups and adopted the strategy of aggressively defending themselves against threats, which usually works against predators, Hawks said. Being social has therefore helped keep us safe, along with the benefits of bipedalism.

The point here is that humans use many, many more species than any other vertebrate — we have a super-sized niche and are the most influential predator in many ecosystems."

While a single human being isn't seen as a predator to a lion, and instead is seen as something they could easily attack, the same cannot be said for a jeep. Any motor vehicle that has 4-wheels is usually perceived as a threat by lions, simply due to the size of these vehicles.

When did humans stop becoming prey? ›

It all tells a story where our genus' trophic level – hom*o's position in the food web – became highly carnivorous for us and our cousins, hom*o erectus, roughly 2.5 million years ago, and remained that way until the upper Paleolithic around 11,700 years ago.

Human predators kill carnivores at about nine times the rate that carnivores kill each other. Humans are primates without fangs, claws, horns, much running speed or a great sense of smell. But people have guns, nets, vehicles, refrigeration and other technologies. The technologies are used on hunts, Darimont explains.

Humans are “the Swiss Army knife of predators,” Darimont says. For eons we behaved like many other predators that capture prey for energy and nutrients, he says. Now we more commonly remove terrestrial animals from the wild for nonfood reasons.

Human NTL there is 3.82, equivalent to a FTL of 4.50. Thus, humans are apex predators in those systems.

The government sect behind Project Stargazer recovers the pod as well as the Fugitive Predator for study. The scientists conclude that the Predator has human DNA inside of it.

"Our results greatly strengthen the growing experimental evidence that wildlife worldwide fear the human 'super predator' far more than other predators,” the researchers stated. The findings are expected to pose challenges for conservation efforts, especially in tourism-dependent regions in South Africa.

Many might assume that humans are at the top of the food chain, but this is not necessarily true. Humans are omnivores (eat both plants and meat) and fall somewhere in the middle of the food chain. At the very top of the food chain are carnivores (eat only meat) that eat other carnivores.

We are all vertebrates, or animals with backbones. Vertebrates use their backbones for movement and support. Vertebrates share other traits as well: an internal skeleton, muscles, a protective skin, blood that circulates through vessels, and an advanced nervous system, including a head with a brain.

The thing that probably stops most predators from killing us, over the course of our evolutionary history, is that we see them before they see us and move or make lots of noise. Predators then have to exert more energy hunting us down and probably fight a whole group of humans.