There are two kinds of elephants, the African elephant and the Indian elephant. The African elephant is larger. They are both herbivores, meaning that they eat plants. Those plants are at the bottom of the food web in their environments. Plants turn energy from the sun into the energy in food. It takes a lot of plants to support elephants. They eat 200-600 pounds of food a day. They may not be gaining any weight, though. They need a lot of energy to stay alive and active.

Animals that eat other animals are called carnivores. All of the cats are carnivores. They are higher up on the food web. In Africa, the lions are the largest cats and at the top of the food web. In India the tigers are.

There aren’t many animals that can kill an elephant. They are so big and strong that they can fight off almost anything. Females also protect each other and their young. Mothers, aunts, sisters, and older female cousins keep babies safe. Tigers hunt alone, so they would have to be very lucky to kill even a very weak elephant. Sometimes an elephant will wander off when it is too small to protect itself. Then a group of lions may be able to kill it. After the elephant dies, many animals may eat it. If big cats killed it, they will eat first. When they are done, scavengers like hyenas and vultures will eat. Eventually, insects, worms, and bacteria will also eat. These are the recyclers. They keep the nutrients and energy flowing through the ecosystem.

The elephant’s skin is so thick that if a powerful animal has not torn it open, other animals may not be able to. In hot, dry Africa, it may become a mummy. In warm, wet India, that won’t happen. The body will decompose with the help of the recyclers.

Lions sometimes kill the other large cats. Mother cheetahs have to protect their cubs from lions. The lions don’t usually eat the cubs, but they may.

Humans also kill elephants and wild cats, but don’t usually eat them. Why do you think there are many tons of plants, a few tons of herbivores, and less than a ton of carnivores all in the same amount of space? If you are interested in questions like this, you may want to study ecology.

Elephants generally do not have predators (animals that eat them) due to their massive size. Newborn elephants are however vulnerable to attacks from lions, tigers, and hyenas. The biggest danger to elephants are humans; elephants have been hunted for their tusks to near extinction in some cases. This website has great information on elephants and potential elephant predators.

The cats that you refer to are at the top of the food chain, meaning they are not eaten by other animals. Although these animals may attack and kill each other, they will not eat the carcass as they would with prey. Like the elephant, the biggest threat to lions and other large cats are humans who hunt them for sport, or land development that destructs their habitat.

Some lions can eat elephants, and humans eat elephants, but aside from them, elephants have no predators. All of these animals have parasites, though, and when they die, their bodies are eaten by maggots, vultures, buzzards, and other animals that eat dead flesh.

Only the largest pack animals would be able to eat an elephant. Elephants are able to defend themselves and can hurt any animal that attacks them by trampling them or hitting them with their large tusks. Prides of lions or packs of hyena or wild dogs might be able to take down an elephant, especially if it is a baby or sick elephant.

There aren't too many animals that will eat wild cats that are the size of cheetahs, lions, tigers, and leopards. If these animals are killed, it's likely to occur when they are still young and not full grown or they may kill each other over territory.