Is an animal considered a predator if it feeds on dead animals, or is it a just a consumer?
412430
Animals that eat meat are carnivores, which can either be predators or scavengers. Predetors hunt and kill their own food. Scavengers mainly feast on the remains of other animals. There is no animal that exhibits the behavior of a pure predator or a pure scavenger.
341341
sun, this powers producers (plants), which are used by both decomposers and herbivores, which are eaten by predators. while plants often require decomposers for nutrients besides the sun's energy, the decompsers would get nothing without the plants, and the plants would get nothing without the sun.
199638
There are too many answers to list.  Some of the answers furnished by others are correct.  However, there are MANY, MANY more such as bacteria, viruses, fungi (depending on your definition of "animals").  Others include crab (and other crustacians like lobster, etc.), parasites, birds (like seagulls, crows, condor, and even eagles eat carion [dead flesh]).  People eat "dead stuff" too...but I'm assuming you meant "rotting" or decaying animal material.
1153772
Pretty much any carnivore will eat bats if they can catch them, that is why bats spend all day hiding in caves, hollow logs and so forth. Any bat that ventures out in daytime will be eaten within minutes.\n\nThe list of predtaors includes all the usual suspects such as cats, dogs, snakes, racoons, hawks, shrikes and so forth but also includes almost any carnivore you can imagine. I've seen bats being eaten by crocodiles, spiders, other bats and, as kawaii holwingwolves aid, by frogs. Bats ae incredibly small animals and are weak even for their size making them prey for almost anything at all that can catch them.\n\nAs for how bats get rabies, normally the disease is transmitted from bat to bat directly which removes any need for the animals to be attacked by another rbaid aniamnl and survive. In the real world the chances of any bat surviving an attack by a predtaor are effectively nil.\n\nYou should also realise that rabies is present in an extremely low proportion of bats. Bat biologist Edward Stashko of Oakton College, Des Plaines, Illinois, estimates that less than one-half of 1 percent of bats are rabid. He says many common misconceptions about bats, such as that they can carry rabies and infect humans without themselves being affected by the disease, grew out of faulty scientific research from the 30s, no doubt conducted at the behest of the rat lobby.\n\nAccording to a 1982 report in National Wildlife, only ten people in the U.S. and Canada have contracted rabies from bats in more than 30 years. Exclaims Dr. Stashko: "More people have died from lawn mowers than from bats. Statistically you have a better chance of being hit by lightning than being bitten by a rabid bat."\nAccording to the CDC, by far the highest incidence of rabies among animals tested occurs not in bats but in skunks.
461409
A vegetarian, not likely. Through the design of creation of happenstance or evolution (which is a different argument, for another time) I am at a certain place in the food chain, as is the rabbit. So as a result I will allow the rabbit to eat his food, and I will in-turn eat the rabbit.
64601
Snakes are true carnivorous because they eat nothing but other animals. They do not eat any type of plant material.
209887
No.  If they're dead then they don't need to eat things.  *Un*dead have a variety of dietary requirements, but are rarely so picky as to be stuck with just eating brains with no flavor differentiation between smart people and stupid people or happy people and sad people.  \n\nBut frankly, I find it more likely that a strain of Mad Cow disease will make people brain-munching grey-matter junkies than hungry dead folks start rampaging about.  Look up "cockroach wasp zombie" to see how tripped out nature can get before death...
1165557
Mostly animal fat and the parts that they can't use in cat and dog food such as snouts, ears, scrota,  and organ meat. (But it's clean carrion.)\n\nThe filler is something such as cereal filler (bread crumbs, oatmeal or flour.)\n\nWhat the heck...eating a dead animal is eating a dead animal.
897723
It is written in the scriptures that in heaven that the predator and prey animals will exist together in harmony so I say yes. \n\nOther mammals are not held to the same set of standards that people are held to. There is not sufficient sentience to reach an 'age of accountability'.
17469
Soil invertebrates play important roles in soil communities. Some directly consume detritus, others consume detritivores, whereas others are higher-level carnivores that can indirectly control decomposition by their effects on lower levels of the food web. The classic study of detrital food webs was conducted by Gist and Crossley (1975), showing which invertebrate groups are detritivores and which are carnivorous. This reference is somewhat hard to find; Smith and Smith (2001, p. 496) has a good description of the major findings of that study.\n\n\nVisit the link below for all the info.
1088013
Boas and other constrictor snakes are opportunistic hunters which will target a prey item that may fit their need for nutrition.  They are generalistic in nature, meaning that their diet does not rely upon a specific type or species.  This allows them to target any unsuspecting creature that may live in the general vicinity.\n\nThese snakes are voracious swallowers when they eat.  These snakes can expand their jaws through their intramandibular joint, allowing their mouths to open much wider than expected.  However, once one of these snakes has eaten its prey, it will not need to feed again for months.  \n\nMost full grown boas and pythons are not usual predatory targets.  It would be possible for a strong predator to attack a boa during consumption of a prey item, but a double meal may not in the best interest of the outside party.
214466
I don't mind eating animals once they're dead, and I don't even have a problem with killing them if it's done with as much care and mercy as practical, but treating them cruelly while alive is reprehensible. If that's what you mean by "helping animals" than count me in.
883667
There are those who are opposed to hunting wildlife.  If I didn’t grow up in a quasi subsistence lifestyle, I might have felt different.  It is easy to see how hunting can be cruel.\n\nFor instance, if you walk into a restaurant and shoot a person at the salad bar, it is murder.  If you walk into a hay field and shoot a deer, it is dinner.  I have seen deer with arrowheads lodged inside and animals with injuries because of bad shots.  That is the dark side of hunting, the animal suffering that is thought of as a price the animal must pay.\n\nSo why hunt?\n\nSmall game animals have a sufficient number of predators to keep their numbers in check.  Even if there wasn’t, an overpopulation of squirrels and rabbits might be an annoyance, but not a real threat to humans and their health.  The habitat can usually support many more animals than current populations.\n\nAs animals get bigger, the number of predators get fewer.  Not many things that I have seen bother raccoons or geese.  Some animals will attack and kill these larger animals, but small animals tend to be an easier kill for a predator.  While overpopulation of these animals can cause a concern for humans.  Again, the habitat can usually support many more animals than current populations.\n\nAs you move to larger animals like deer, coyotes, and similar animals, there are few if any natural predators still around.  If the population is let go, the animals become a threat to humans either through predatory instincts or just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time (ie. Car deer accidents).  As the animals are large, they require greater amounts of food.  A large deer population can be devastating to a farmer’s crop, not to mention spread disease to livestock intended for human consumption (like bovine tuberculosis).\n\nEven small animals can be devastating to crops.  The dove population in Argentina is so large that a flock can eat thousands of tons of grain in a day.  Fields can be wiped out in under a day by the larger flocks.  \n\nHunting helps restore the balance that humans have destroyed.  As predators are gone, humans have become the predators.  Without the predators, animals like deer will consume all the food available in their habitat and either starve to death or die of diseases like CWD, bovine tuberculosis, or others  (neither sounds like a good way to die to me)\n\nSo what good is hunting?\n\n1.Keeps populations of certain game under control.  In some states, if hunting were eliminated for a year or two, the current deer populations would be well beyond the carrying capacity of the land.  Granted, many animals are not in the same predicament as the deer, but are getting to be.\n\n2.It provides an activity that allows families to spend time together and pass down traditions.  Yes, there are other things families can do, but hunting happens to be an activity built on tradition.\n\n3.It provides a heck of a lot of money into economies that otherwise wouldn’t have tourism.  I hunt deer in Tomah, WI.  Any other time of the year, there is nothing going on in the town.  However, when the gun deer season comes around, all of the hotels are full, the restaurants have waiting lists, the gas pumps are flowing, and local stores are selling things that the hunters need or forgot.\n\n4.Provides an overall boost to the economy.  Hunting is expensive (very expensive if you think about it).  Gun deer hunting requires a rifle, which a cheap one will run $500.  The rifle needs a scope which is another $250.  The scope needs rings which is $30.  A box of ammo will set a hunter back $20.  The hunter needs to sight in their rifle every year at $15 a visit.  Boots wear out at $100 a pair.  A GPS is needed after getting lost in the woods last year for about $150.  The kids stole my compass, making me part with another $10.  I can’t see over the brush anymore, so I need a deer stand at $160.  This goes on and on for any hunter (at least deer hunters…).  This money tends
428890
Very few mammals are exclusively one or the other without ever crossing over the herbivore/omnivore fence.\n\nHippos in particular are known to partake in meat on occasion, even killing their own food.\n\nBut when you consider even the placid milk cow, calmly munching away on grass in a verdant field.  This would seem to be the very archetype of the herbivorous animal.  Then, think about that grass.  Just how many bugs are living in, on, around or near that grass?  Does the cow take the time to gingerly remove every ant before cropping those blades?  No.  Bessie out there probably consumes more insects every hour than any spider, and probably almost as many as bats are always lauded for consuming each night.  \n\nSure, two grams of insects a day doesn't sound like much when its consumed by a one ton cow, but it has the same impact on the insect population as that two gram bat diet does.\n\nThe vast majority of carnivores are also at least partially omnivorous as well.  The cats tend to be among the most carnivorous among land mammals, but even they will sometimes eat fruit or other vegetable matter.  They'll also sometimes swallow grass, but that's not really for nutrition.\n\nIn biology, there are very rarely absolute stamps like HERBIVORE or NOCTURNAL or MONOGAMOUS or MARINE that always apply, without exception in all circumstances.
656893
Grass grows.  Grazing animals (herbivores) eat grass and convert it to flesh.  Meat eating animals (carnivores) catch and eat herbivores.  Carnivores die.  Bacteria, fungi and other micro-organisms cause decay.  The decay products help fertilse the grass so it can grow, and the process repeats.\n\nIt is a little more complicated than that, but the  basics are as set out above.
1031219
The distinction between hunters and scavengers is a false dichotomy. Most carnivores will scavenge if the opportunity presents itself.
268914
You have proposed an interesting question.  Clasically, a hawk is considered\n"the top of the food chain."  That is, nothing eats a hawk.  However, the\nnatural world is never so simple, some big cats (moutain lions, bobcats,\nleopards)and bears have been known to eat hawks, especially if the hawks are\ninjured or sick and cannot fly away.