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apex predator

noun

Etymology

From apex + predator.

  1. borrowed from praedātor
  2. compounded as apex predator — “apex + predator”

Definitions

  1. An animal atop the food chain, preying on another animals, and not itself preyed upon.

    • a. 2007, Martha Hiatt, quoted in, 2007, Wendell Jamieson, Father Knows Less, or, "Can I cook my sister?", Putnam, →ISBN, page 203, Killer whales are the oceans' apex predators, which means they are at the top of the food chain.
    • And marijuana is not a Schedule I any more than a hedgehog is an apex predator. “You’re not scaring anyone, Roland. Get a tattoo.”
    • With a bite that could split a shark in two and an armored mug only a mother could love, Dunkleosteus was one of Earth’s earliest apex predators, terrorizing subtropical seas 360 million years ago during the Devonian Period.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for apex predator. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA