Tsarren wrote: > 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 Depends upon who's doing the classification. But let's move to a less controversial form, the bacteria.