Scientists believe the Anomalocaris to be a super apex predator because of their anatomy that allowed them to hunt their prey.
#1. Wolf. The wolf is the top apex predator in the world.
Introduction. Humans have assumed the role of 'super predator' in animal communities globally, killing terrestrial carnivores at rates as much as nine times higher than their natural predators [1].
It shows how humans typically take out adult fish populations at 14 times the rate that marine animals do themselves. And on land, we kill top carnivores, such as bears, wolves and lions, at nine times their own self-predation rate.
It depends on your definition of predator. Lions, gray wolves and great white sharks have one thing in common: They're top predators. Their diets consist almost entirely of meat, and except in rare instances, these animals have no natural predators — except humans.
Mosquitos are by far the deadliest creature in the world when it comes to annual human deaths, causing around one million deaths per year, compared to 100,000 deaths from snakes and 250 from lions. Perhaps surpringly, dogs are the third deadliest animal to humans.
Human NTL there is 3.82, equivalent to a FTL of 4.50. Thus, humans are apex predators in those systems.
Using metrics as diverse as tool use and acidity of the stomach, they concluded that humans evolved as apex predators, diversifying their diets in response to the disappearance of most of the megafauna that had once been their primary source of food.
Significant evidence for the evolution of humans as predators has also been found in our genome. For example, geneticists have concluded that “areas of the human genome were closed off to enable a fat-rich diet, while in chimpanzees, areas of the genome were opened to enable a sugar-rich diet.”
The human species was able to become a superpredator through technology, which has allowed us to escape the limits usually found in predator-prey relationships. Better weapons mean that hunting and fishing are relatively safe activities, at least compared with animal hunts.
Although humans can be attacked by many kinds of non-human animals, man-eaters are those that have incorporated human flesh into their usual diet and actively hunt and kill humans. Most reported cases of man-eaters have involved lions, tigers, leopards, polar bears, and large crocodilians.
They are larger than mainstream Predators (in terms of muscularity) but still stand at around 7 feet tall (or more) like the "normal" Predators. They have a more reptilian appearance than their better-known cousins and have scaly skin in addition to different color pigmentation.
It all tells a story where our genus' trophic level – Homo's position in the food web – became highly carnivorous for us and our cousins, Homo erectus, roughly 2.5 million years ago, and remained that way until the upper Paleolithic around 11,700 years ago.
Animals with no natural predators are called apex predators, because they sit at the top (or apex) of the food chain. The list is indefinite, but it includes lions, grizzly bears, crocodiles, giant constrictor snakes, wolves, sharks, electric eels, giant jellyfish, killer whales, polar bears, and arguably, humans.
The Anomalocaris was the Earth's first super predator. Its body had approximately 11 lateral swimming flaps with a distinctive head and large eyes on stalks. Their two appendages had 14 segments each and were lined with sharp spikes.
Killer Whales
When you think of top ocean predators, you probably think of sharks. Great white sharks, to be exact. But the true ruler of the sea is the killer whale. Killer whales are apex predators, which means they have no natural predators.
In Kenya, a vampire spider is hunting down its prey by tracking the smell of human feet. If that sounds nightmarish, don't panic – the spider Evarcha culicivora is only an indirect vampire.
Based on the fossil evidence dating back 7 million years and studies in living primate species, Fuentes and others suggest that primates, including early humans, were the prey of many predators, including hyenas, cats and crocodiles.
That's where humans rank, with a trophic level of 2.2. Above us are carnivores, such as foxes, that eat just herbivores. At the top of the scale are meat-eaters that don't have any predators themselves, such as polar bears and orca whales.
Many species, including predators like pumas and bobcats, view humans as an apex predator and lay low when they sense we're around.
Many traits that influenced our ability to spot predators or flee from them have been under strong natural selection for much of the past 40 million years of primate evolution and even before then. (We have been prey essentially since the beginning.)
Mostly: no. Some could fight off a dog or wolf, but not a pack. And things only get worse from there: cougar, bear, tiger, lion, shark… heck a deer can kill most humans, an elk or moose certainly (and those aren't predators).
TORONTO -- Despite a widespread belief that humans owe their evolution to the dietary flexibility in eating both meat and vegetables, researchers in Israel suggest that early humans were actually apex predators who hunted large animals for two million years before they sought vegetables to supplement their diet.
Four species of sharks account for the vast majority of fatal attacks on humans: the bull shark, tiger shark, oceanic whitetip shark and the great white shark.