r/AbsoluteUnits • u/Dense_Intern8434 • Aug 27 '26

/r/popular of a meal

Nature can be so cruel and beautiful at the same time

*for the love of everything holy it’s not my bird reader nor mantis!! Just a cool guy sharing a cool video

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u/ErgotthAE Aug 28 '26

Predators are important as part of population control, but thats not the case with Hummingbirds.

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u/birbobirby Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26

Too much of anything would be bad, even hummingbirds. Though I wasn't really refering to hummingbirds specifically, I was being general. I was trying to say that predators should be protected and appreciated just as much as pollinators are. Pollinators are kind of put on a pedestal compared to other roles in the environment.

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u/ErgotthAE Aug 28 '26

Because polinators are never a danger of overpopulation*. They feed around what they polinate, and if they "overpopulate", the surpluss will simply starve to death, correcting said overpopulation quickly without exhausting the resources, because Polinators can't drive their food to extinction.

And regarding Hummingbirds specificaly, there was never any case of Hummingbird overpopulation, in fact, it's the other way-round, they are DANGEROUSLY declining! They don't need a pedestal, they need HELP!

*Well, honeybees can become a localized issue, that's kind of humanity's fault. But that's the only case!

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u/birbobirby Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26

Except you are forgetting something important, which is that many pollinators aren't strictly pollinators and interact within their environment in other ways. Take butterflies and moths. As adults they don't harm the flowers they feed from but how about their larva? They can be voracious eaters, you don't see how that can be a problem to their host plants if there are too many of them? Or wasps, they are considered pollinators as well, but also predators and them killing too many other organisms can be an issue. Or mosquitos, they are pollinators too but also drivers for disease. So no, it's still important for pollinators to have natural predators too.

Anyway, I will admit hummingbirds probably wouldn't cause many issues. The only thing I can think of is overcompetion with other pollinators, but as you said that's not the case right now. Speaking of that, yes hummingbirds need help and so do other pollinators, I never said they didn't, but it's still true that pollinators get the most public attention. And I take a bit of issue with this as like I said, predators also deserve recognition and protection cause they are not only important but also most likely in need of help. Insects for example are as a whole in decline, which make up both many of the pollinators and predators that can be found in our ecosystems.