Apex predator

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Apex predators (also alpha predators, superpredators, or top-level predators) are predators that, as adults, are not normally preyed upon in the wild in significant parts of their ranges. Some can be superpredators in some environments but not others (e.g., domestic cats). Some species can be the end of long food chains, where they have a crucial role in maintaining and determining the health of ecosystems, although some predators may be the end of a food chain having only three stages (grass→deer→wolf), but this is the bare minimum for inclusion. Even those not dangerous to humans (e.g., owls) are formidable predators in their respective niches.

[edit] In culture

Superpredators often appear in literature high and low. They include the lions, tigers, and bears to which hapless Christians and political offenders were fed in Roman spectacles, the much-maligned Big Bad Wolf of sundry fairy tales, Moby Dick, the Great White Whale of Herman Melville's novel of the same name, and Steven King's rabid Saint Bernard dog Cujo. Within the genre of horror film, almost every imaginable creature that could have humans on the menu has been made an object of the primal horror of being eaten or worse. However, some animals considered to be potential man-eaters are, in reality, not threatening to humans. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

Even anachronistic dinosaurs such as Velociraptor and T. Rex have been so exploited. [9]

Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book depicts the unusual situation of several superpredators (wolves, dholes, a panther (really a melanistic leopard), a giant python, giant cobras, a bear, a tiger, and a human) interacting, usually in respect for each other with the glaring exception of the young Mowgli whom the tiger Shere Khan wishes to kill and eat at an appropriate time.