Drag it. Zoom in. Trace the energy.
Move organisms around, zoom down to a single feeding link, and click any species to see everything it eats and everything that eats it. Then switch to the simplified view to see the same relationships without the clutter.
ARROWS POINT FROM THE ORGANISM BEING EATEN TO THE ORGANISM THAT EATS IT
Who eats whom, and where they sit.
Every organism in a food web occupies a trophic level — a rung on the ladder of energy transfer. Producers sit at the bottom, apex predators at the top, and decomposers work every level at once, breaking down dead matter and returning nutrients to the soil.
Four moves and you've read the web.
Everything runs locally in your browser — nothing to install, nothing uploaded, nothing stored.
Pick your view
Start with the full ecosystem for every species and feeding link, then flip to the simplified view to see the same relationships without the clutter.
Drag & zoom
Move any organism to rearrange the web — links re-route automatically. Scroll or pinch to zoom, and drag the background to pan around the ecosystem.
Click any species
Every node opens a dossier: what it eats, what eats it, its trophic level, and a quick fact. The web highlights every link connected to that species.
Trace the energy
Follow the arrows from producers up to apex predators. Then hide the labels and quiz yourself — can you name what eats what without the hints?
Food webs, measured.
Energy doesn't disappear when it's eaten — most of it is lost as heat. These are the numbers that shape every food web on Earth.
The 10% rule
Only about a tenth of the energy an organism consumes becomes biomass in the eater. The rest is lost as heat, used for movement, or passed out as waste — which is why food chains rarely have more than four or five links.
Biomass pyramid
Because so much energy is lost at every step, the total mass of living things shrinks as you climb. A pyramid of biomass shows this: a huge base of plants supporting a much smaller layer of herbivores, and so on up.
Species in a web
Real food webs vary wildly — a desert spring might have a handful of species, a rainforest thousands. This model shows a temperate forest with 18 species and around 50 feeding links, enough to see how tangled a real web gets.
Things people ask.
Everything about how the model behaves, how honest the drawing is, and what it saves (nothing).
Still stuck? Write to us — we read everything.
How do I use the interactive food web?+
Drag any organism to move it around the web, scroll or pinch to zoom, and click a species to highlight everything it eats and everything that eats it. Switch to the simplified view to see the same relationships with fewer organisms.
Is this food web scientifically accurate?+
It's a stylized, idealized take on a real ecosystem — built so every feeding link is easy to see, click and trace. Real food webs shift with season, age, and location, and many of these species eat more or less than the diagram shows.
What's the difference between a food chain and a food web?+
A food chain is a single straight line — grass to grasshopper to frog to snake. A food web is what you get when you overlap every food chain in an ecosystem: a tangled map where most organisms eat more than one thing and are eaten by more than one thing.
What do the arrows mean?+
Every arrow points in the direction energy flows — from the organism being eaten to the organism doing the eating. So an arrow from grass to grasshopper means the grasshopper gets its energy from the grass.
Why are some organisms called producers and others consumers?+
Producers make their own food, usually by photosynthesis — plants, algae, and some bacteria. Consumers can't, so they eat other organisms. Decomposers are a special kind of consumer that breaks down dead material and returns nutrients to the soil.
What does the 'simplified' toggle do?+
It strips the web back to a handful of key species so the feeding links are easier to follow. Switch back to 'full' to see the complete, tangled ecosystem with every organism included.
Does the tool save or upload anything?+
No. The whole food web runs in your browser. Nothing you drag, click, or select is ever sent to a server, logged, or stored.
Can I use this on my phone or tablet?+
Yes. One finger drags organisms and pans, pinching zooms, and tapping selects — so the whole web works the same with touch as it does with a mouse.
Is this interactive food web free to use?+
Yes, it's completely free with no account, no sign-up, and no limit on how much you explore.