The Lion, The Shark and The Eagle Part 1

The animal kingdom can be divided into;

1.      The Marine World

2.      The Terrestrial World

3.      The Kingdom of the Aves.

The worlds we live in operate in the principle of energy conversion and succession, which means that everything is about energy flow. In the animal kingdom, energy is what propels the activities that take place therein. The most common and predominant is the food chain.

Food chain is the graphical representation of the hierarchy that does occur in the feeding habits of the animal which commences with the primary producers and terminates with the secondary consumer. In the animal kingdom, we have lots of secondary consumers like lion, tiger, man, shark, whale, falcon, eagle, etc.

In this essay, we will be looking at some of these animals and their connotations to the human society.

1.      The Lion – The lion is considered the king of the jungle. This is because of its attributes. When the lion roars, its echo can be heard at the distance of at least 3km away. Of all the predators in the wild, the lion is the one that do hunt games that are much larger than it like the elephant, giraffe, etc

The hyena which is one of the scavengers in the wild is a menace to all the predators in the wild. But it dreads the lion.

The hunting tactics of the lioness is a mathematical feat, they hunt in pride. Whenever they go out to hunt, they will position themselves at some strategic positions. One of them will go and launch a chase, separating the targeted weakling from the fold and chasing it towards a perimeter where the lionesses are hiding. When this is achieved, the entire lioness will join in the chase and hunt the game down. If the prey is too big for them, the lion will now come in.

In our society, we see ourselves choosing to play varying roles, either the predator or the prey. The law of the pyramid states that the population at the base of the pyramid is far more numerous than the population at the peak.

In the food chain, the preys which is a step up in the pyramid from the base is more in number than the predators which are at the apex of the pyramid.

Our society have been described by a lot of people as a society ‘where the rich are few and the poor numerous’. I am not here to criticize or affirm the notion but we know that one of the fundamental characteristics of energy flow is that it obeys the pyramidical arrangement, where the numerous are at the base and the few are at the peak of the pyramid.

The lion, according to a program I watched in Natural Geography channel is said to preserve the ecosystem i.e. it eliminates the weaker ones of specie thereby preserving the passing of the viable traits which aids in the adaptation and the survival of specie.

2.   

   The Shark – In the marine world, the shark is considered as the alpha predator. It is a predator that preys on any fish that comes its way. According to the pyramidical arrangement of energy succession in the food chain, the shark is placed at the apex of the pyramid. Shark has a highly developed hunting skills that helps it to hunt both in the light and in the dark, its sense of smell can detect the smell of blood for up to a distance of 1 km, its speed is enormous in fact it was made to kill.

3.

      The Eagle: In the kingdom of the Aves, eagle is seen as the alpha predator. The eagle’s mode of hunting is both instinctual and ingenious. When the eagle is about to hunt a prey, it will wait until the wind is blowing in the direction of the prey. It will then gauge the time it will take to reach the prey. If the prey is in motion, it will calculate the time it will take it to reach a particular position, and the time it will take it to reach that position. Then it will dive towards that determined point. The eyesight of the eagle is so sharp and keen that it can see a prey as small as a rabbit from a distance of 1km and above. Looking at the eagle, you will see that nature designed it to kill.

TO BE CONTINUED...