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Habitats, classifying animals and food chains

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Food chains

Plants make their own food and animals do not.  Different animals eat the plants in their habitat.  Some other animals will then eat the animals which consumed the plants.

This is called a food chain.  

Animals at the top of the food chain do not get eaten by any other animals.  

Below are some key words all about food chains.

Key words

Click on the flashcards below to learn what all of these food chain key words mean. 

Here is a food chain that you would find in an ocean habitat. The arrows mean that energy is being transferred from one animal or plant to another, as one living thing eats the other. However, not all of the energy is transferred between every level as some is wasted.  

For example, in the below food chain the fish will not get all of the energy that the zooplankton consumed from the phytoplankton. This is because the zooplankton will have lost some as heat, or by moving around.  

Click on the numbers to see if they are producers or consumers.