Final answer:
Secondary consumers depend on the sun indirectly; they get energy by eating primary consumers, who in turn have eaten plants that photosynthesize using the sun's energy.
Step-by-step explanation:
A secondary consumer is an organism that eats primary consumers, which in turn have consumed the primary producers. These primary producers, such as plants, capture energy directly from the sun through photosynthesis to create glucose, which is their energy source. Then, the primary consumers eat these producers and gain energy, which is ultimately passed on to secondary consumers when they feed on primary consumers. Therefore, even though secondary consumers, like snake in our example, do not directly harness solar energy, they are indirectly dependent on the sun for their energy because they rely on the food chain that begins with photosynthesis by plants.