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mesopredator

mesopredator noun: a medium-sized predator which often increases in abundance when larger predators are eliminated.

Noun

mesopredator (plural mesopredators)

  1. A medium-sized predator which often increases in abundance when larger predators are eliminated.
    • Raccoons, skunks, snakes, cats, and foxes are mesopredators.
    • Large predators are equally important as keystone species; their removal can allow predators in the next size class down to proliferate. This phenomenon, known as meso-predator release, can have a huge impact on ecosystems.2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 227

Forms of mesopredator

pluralmesopredators

Origin of mesopredator

From meso- + predator.

Words formed from mesopredator

Questions about mesopredator

What does mesopredator mean?
Mesopredator means a medium-sized predator which often increases in abundance when larger predators are eliminated.
What part of speech is mesopredator?
Mesopredator is a noun.
What is the plural of mesopredator?
The plural of mesopredator is mesopredators.

Words near mesopredator in the dictionary

  1. Mesopotamian
  2. Mesopotamian Arabic
  3. Mesopotamian zodiac
  4. Mesopotamians
  5. Mesopotamic
  6. mesopredator
  7. mesopredators
  8. mesopredatory
  9. mesoprefrontal
  10. mesoproduction
  11. mesoprogestin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mesopredator (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “mesopredator.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mesopredator. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.