what is a tertiary consumer, is that another way of saying a third level consumer
1 Level 2: Herbivores eat plants and are called primary consumers. 2  Level 3: Carnivores that eat herbivores are called secondary consumers. 3  Level 4: Carnivores that eat other carnivores are called tertiary consumers. 4  Level 5: Apex predators that have no predators are at the top of the food chain.t the lowest trophic level (the bottom of the food chain), plants convert about 1% of the sunlight they receive into chemical energy. It follows from this that the total energy originally present in the incident sunlight that is finally embodied in a tertiary consumer is about 0.001%.