ROUND 2 - Sweet 16

Southpaws - Bracket Voting

Welcome to the Southpaws Bracket! These animals live on or south of the equator at some point during the year!

Please vote below for who will survive the first round!

Below each image will be a write up. At the bottom of the page will be a VOTING SECTION...please make sure you vote!

This Round's Question...

WHY IS THIS ANIMAL THE MOST IMPORTANT ANIMAL IN IT'S NICHE/ECOSYSTEM?

Good Luck to all! Happy learning!

READ...LEARN...THEN VOTE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE!

#TEAMSILVERBACK #SSSSSSnakeVictory #BadgerGonnaWin #GoBlueWhale

Spiny Bush Viper vs Silverback Gorilla

Spiny Bush Viper - click on the dropdown arrow to learn more about why this species is so important in its ecosystem!

Does size matter? If it does, do not be fooled by our opponent gorilla’s fat size which just takes up space. It might have a larger body but has a teeny-tiny brain. Our precious atheris is the king when it comes to the food chain. Atheris only fears humans and other big snakes, luckily no larger snakes or humans tend to live near southern Africa. Atheris is way more important than a gorilla, if the species of atheris were to be extinct the surrounding ecosystem would face its wrath as the population of small annoyingly disgusting insects and rodents like grasshoppers and mice (which are very disgusting) will increase. Which will cause an imbalance in the ecosystem and to the entire food chain in that area. Based on all the information it isn’t even a hard decision to make over which animal you should vote. Atheris completely dominates over the silverback gorilla and is much more important to the food chain.

Silverback Gorilla- click on the dropdown arrow to learn more about why this species is so important in its ecosystem!

I motion to the troop to start moving, but before I go myself I look back at the silverback that I just killed. I do not regret killing him. He was weak anyway. It is a shame that he had to die though, there are only just over 1000 members of our species left in the entire world! If we completely died off, it would be a catastrophe! Since we’re so big, our predators like leopards or alligators get big meals from us. It doesn’t sound good, but since we fill them up so much, they eat less of their other prey like antelopes. Plus, we are all vegetarian so when we eat fruits or vegetables, we disperse their seeds so that more plants or trees can grow! Without us, there’d be a lot less vegetation, which means less food for everyone. For now though, I just shrug and make my way to the front of the troop to lead it

Blue Whale vs Honey Badger

Blue Whale - click on the dropdown arrow to learn more about why this species is so important in its ecosystem!

The extraordinary blue whale has no fear in the seas. Its niche(position on the food chain) is being a primary consumer(top of the food chain). This actively demonstrates that no other animal has the ability to kill a 170 ton beast. This gigantic beast feeds on krill everyday. Krills are very small(about thumb size) but a blue whale swallows millions of krill each gulp. Blue whales eat 4 tons of food every day and that's insane. Unlike a blue whale, a honey badger will take 10 years eating that much food. Honey badgers are 9-16kg tertiary consumers(second top on food chain) They can never compete with a blue whale because that will be their death wish. Honey badgers have a chance of dying from their primary consumers, the lion. It always feels nice being on top because you know that you have no threat of being killed in the sea. A blue whale has no predators but it does have to keep care of the ecosystem. They don't eat all the krill they see. They have to keep the number of krill a balance because so then the krill can reproduce more. If more krill reproduce, then the blue whales have more to eat. This humongous blue whale lives all around the oceans except for the arctic because it's way too cold for them to give birth to a 2.5 ton calve(baby whale). The blue whale is super super important to its food chain and habitat because it eats krill. Krill tend to live on top of ocean surfaces in huge groups and they block sunlight off for other amazing animals like the bottlenose dolphin. If other animals don't get enough sunlight, their food chains will be ruined and all other animals will die, but those animals don't have to worry. The blue whale is there to save the day. The blue whale eats most of the krill and makes sure the krill don't block all of the sunlight coming through. If the blue whale was extinct, All of the krill would start to reproduce so much that most of the ocean wont get sunlight. Even though fish also eat krill, fish don't eat as much as blue whales. Fish won't have the time to eat that much. A blue whale eats 4 tons a day. That's more than a million krill they eat. On the other hand a honey badger doesn't save anyone's day and will not try to help any other animal. Honey badgers are selfish predators that are not even on top of their food chain. At the end of the day a blue whale is the most important animal in the sea and if it were to be extinct many other animals would be extinct too.

Honey Badger - click on the dropdown arrow to learn more about why this species is so important in its ecosystem!

If you have ever taken a social class and haven’t fallen asleep then you’ll know that in today's society we follow a strict structure that comes with many rules so we can survive to maintain order in our world. The animal kingdom is no different because of their “natural hierarchy”, aka food chain, that they follow. In every food chain there is always the apex predator who is at the top that no other animal dares to challenge. Except for one animal, the honey badger. The honey badger is a tertiary consumer which means it sits just below the lion and hyena in the chain. Although the blue whale is important to sea life, the honey badger's role is very important up on the surface as to why it sits above all the other small animals. It has many jobs in its ecosystem, but it's two most important jobs are keeping the dreaded snake population under control and to give the remaining 10% of energy coming from plants from the bottom of the food chain to the top. So if the honey badger was to get removed from the natural hierarchy there would be a big consequence that would wreck the entire system. First of all there would be an overpopulation of snakes in the wild because of the lack of predators that eat them since the mongoose is really the only other animal that preys on them occasionally. That means if there are too many snakes then the elephant shrew population would start to go down since they are the snake’s favorite snack. Now with less of the elephant shrew, the top animal on the food chain will not get the remaining energy it needs to survive since the shrew eats the insects that eat the nutrients from the grass and trees. In summary if the honey badger was to ever get removed from the food chain, there would be many consequences that would ultimately cause the downfall of the trophic food web.

VOTING!

ROUND 2 -" Which animal is vital to maintaining a healthy ecosystem?"

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