On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 07:20:05PM -0600, Howard Brazee wrote: > David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > > > > I'd have thought the *top* of the food chain would be the carrion > > eaters. Or at least the obligate carnivores. > > How about the virus? Viruses are not classified as living organisms - they do not grow, they do not consume food, they are not made of one or more cells, they don't even have cell parts, and they don't respond to their environment. This would indicate they cannot be a part of the food chain, and are outside of it in the same way that a forest fire is outside of it. Kat