Dave Hone

I have a problem with the term apex predator, because ecologically, apex predators are generally defined as things that eat other predators, right?

So a great white shark is because it's eating stuff like tuna and sea lions, which are themselves predators.

So it's a predator of predators.

Whereas people love saying lions are apex predators and they love saying T-Rex is an apex predator.

They're eating herbivores.

This is not some weird and unusual thing.

They're the largest predator in their ecosystem.

And they are a giant one.

My friend Dairon Nash has moved to using the word arch predator.

So it's like some kind of

massive thing but avoiding the term apex because i think that leads into a it it it's a subtle terminology thing but uh an important one i just learned something today so i didn't understand i thought i was i was using the word apex predators but everyone keeps using it when i don't think they should

And now you're getting into linguistics and it's like, well, if everyone uses it to mean that, does it now mean that rather than what it should mean?

And then I'm probably losing that argument because actually you'll probably find way more stuff calling it an apex predator than you will an arch predator.

But here we are.

But you're saying T-Rex didn't eat?

Other predators?

Well, it's probably not going to.

So we can get into, though I'd prefer not to because it's tedious, the argument of whether or not there's these small things which some people have said is a different group called Nanotyrannus or a different species called Nanotyrannus.

But fundamentally...

T-Rex is definitely weird, even compared to all the other giant tyrannosaurs that are very closely related to it, because it is by far, ludicrously by far, the largest carnivore in its ecosystem.