On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 11:06:30PM -0500, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > Tsarren <tsarren at alyra.org> writes: > > > 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. > > However, the fungus do look good for this too. While actually part of the food web, fungi are classified as 'decomposers' (the other two being producers [plants] and consumers [things that eat producers, decomposers, and other consumers]). It's all a big circle, and in an attempt to find the 'top' people are following the circle beyond the consumers. I think people are looking for predators that are not also prey to another consumer when they want to find things 'at the top of the food chain.' Kat