Carnivore

This article is about the general concept of a meat-eating
animal. For the mammal order, see Carnivora. For other
uses, see Carnivore (disambiguation).
A carnivore /krnvr/ meaning 'Meat Eater' (Latin,
grow. In addition, there are plenty of carnivorous species
that are not members of Carnivora.
Outside the animal kingdom, there are several genera
containing carnivorous plants and several phyla con-
taining carnivorous fungi. The former are predomi-
nantly insectivores, while the latter prey mostly on mi-
croscopic invertebrates, such as nematodes, amoebae and
springtails.

Lion eating meat

carne meaning 'meat' or 'esh' and vorare meaning 'to de-

vour') is an organism that derives its energy and nutrient
requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclu-
sively of animal tissue, whether through predation or
scavenging.[1][2] Animals that depend solely on animal
esh for their nutrient requirements are called obligate
carnivores while those that also consume non-animal food
are called facultative carnivores.[2] Omnivores also con-
sume both animal and non-animal food, and apart from
the more general denition, there is no clearly dened
ratio of plant to animal material that would distinguish
a facultative carnivore from an omnivore.[3] A carnivore
that sits at the top of the food chain is termed an apex The Venus ytrap, a well known carnivorous plant
predator.
Plants that capture and digest insects (and, at times, other
small animals) are called carnivorous plants. Similarly, Carnivores are sometimes characterized by the type of
fungi that capture microscopic animals are often called prey that they consume. For example, animals that eat
carnivorous fungi. insects and similar invertebrates primarily or exclusively
are called insectivores, while those that eat sh primarily
or exclusively are called piscivores. The rst tetrapods,
1 Classication or land-dwelling vertebrates, were piscivorous amphib-
ians known as labyrinthodonts. They gave rise to in-
The word carnivore sometimes refers to the mammalian sectivorous vertebrates and, later, to predators of other
[4]
order Carnivora, but this is somewhat misleading. While tetrapods.
many Carnivora meet the denition of being meat eaters, Carnivores may alternatively be classied according to
not all do, and even fewer are true obligate carnivores (see the percentage of meat in their diet. The diet of a
below). For example, most species of bears are actually hypercarnivore consists of more than 70% meat, that of
omnivorous, except for the giant panda, which is almost a mesocarnivore 5070%, and that of a hypocarnivore
exclusively herbivorous, and the exclusively meat-eating less than 30%, with the balance consisting of non-animal
polar bear, which lives in the Arctic, where few plants foods such as fruits, other plant material, or fungi.

1
2 4 SEE ALSO

3 Prehistoric carnivores
The rst vertebrate carnivores were sh, and then am-
phibians that moved on to land. Early tetrapods were
large amphibious piscivores. Some scientists assert that
Dimetrodon was the rst terrestrial vertebrate to develop
the curved, serrated teeth that enable a predator to eat
prey much larger than itself.[8] While amphibians con-
tinued to feed on sh and later insects, reptiles began ex-
ploring two new food types, tetrapods (carnivory), and
later, plants (herbivory). Carnivory was a natural tran-
sition from insectivory for medium and large tetrapods,
This Bengal tiger's sharp teeth and strong jaws are the classical requiring minimal adaptation (in contrast, a complex set
physical traits expected from carnivorous mammalian predators of adaptations was necessary for feeding on highly brous
plant materials).[4]
Carnivoramorphs are currently the dominant carnivo-
1.1 Obligate carnivores rous mammals, and have been so since the Miocene.
In the early to mid-Cenozoic, however, hyaenodonts,
Obligate carnivores, or true carnivores, are those car- oxyaenid, entelodonts, ptolemaiidans, "arctocyonids" and
nivores whose survival depends on nutrients which are "mesonychians" were dominant instead, representing
found only in animal esh. While obligate carnivores a very high diversity of eutherian carnivores in the
might be able to ingest small amounts of plant mate- northern continents and Africa. In South America,
rial, because of their evolution they lack the necessary sparassodonts were dominant instead, while Australia
physiology required to digest that plant matter. In fact, saw the presence of several marsupial predators, such as
some obligate carnivorous mammals will only ever ingest the dasyuromorphs and thylacoleonids.
vegetation for its specic use as an emetic to self-induce In the Mesozoic, while theropod dinosaurs were the larger
vomiting to rid itself of food that has upset its stomach. carnivores, several carnivorous mammal groups were al-
For instance, felids including the domestic cat are obli- ready present. Most notable are the gobiconodontids,
gate carnivores requiring a diet of primarily animal esh the triconodontid Jugulator, the deltatheroideans and
and organs.[5] Specically, cats have high protein require- Cimolestes. Many of these, such as Repenomamus,
ments and their metabolisms appear unable to synthe- Jugulator and Cimolestes, were among the largest mam-
size certain essential nutrients (including retinol, arginine, mals in their faunal assemblages, capable of attacking
[9][10][11]
taurine, and arachidonic acid), and thus, in nature, they dinosaurs.
can rely only on animal esh as their diet to supply these Most carnivorous mammals, from dogs to
nutrients.[6][7] Deltatheridium, share several adaptations in com-
mon, such as carnassialiforme teeth, long canines
and even similar tooth replacement patterns.[12] Most
aberrant are thylacoleonids, which bear a diprodontan
dentition completely unlike that of any mammal, and
2 Characteristics of carnivores eutriconodonts like gobioconodontids and Jugulator,
by virtue of their cusp anatomy, though they still worked
Characteristics commonly associated with carnivores in- in the same way as carnassials.[9]
clude organs for capturing and disarticulating prey (teeth Some theropod dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex that
and claws serve these functions in many vertebrates) and existed during the Mesozoic Era were probably obligate
status as a predator. In truth, these assumptions may carnivores.
be misleading, as some carnivores do not hunt and are
scavengers (though most hunting carnivores will scavenge
when the opportunity exists). Thus they do not have the
characteristics associated with hunting carnivores. Car- 4 See also
nivores have comparatively short digestive systems, as
they are not required to break down tough cellulose found Mesocarnivore
in plants. Many animals that hunt other animals have Hypercarnivore
evolved eyes that face forward, thus making depth per-
ception possible. This is almost universal among mam- Herbivore
malian predators. Other predators, like crocodiles, as
Omnivore
well as most reptiles and amphibians, have sideways fac-
ing eyes and hunt by ambush rather than pursuit. Piscivore
 3

5 References
[1] Nutrient Requirements: Carnivores. Duane E. Ullrey.
Encyclopedia of Animal Science.

[2] Mammals: Carnivores. Duane E. Ullrey. Encyclopedia

of Animal Science.

[3] Mammals"' Omnivores. Duane E. Ullrey. Encyclopedia

of Animal Science.

[4] Sahney, S., Benton, M.J. & Falcon-Lang, H.J. (2010).

Rainforest collapse triggered Pennsylvanian tetrapod di-
versication in Euramerica (PDF). Geology. 38 (12):
10791082. doi:10.1130/G31182.1.

[5] Velegrand-Defretin, Veronique (1994). Dierences

between cats and dogs: a nutritional view (PDF).
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. 53: 1524.
doi:10.1079/pns19940004.

[6] Ullrey, D. E. (2004). Mammals: Carnivores. In Pond,

Wilson. Encyclopedia of Animal Science. CRC Press. p.
591. ISBN 978-0-8247-5496-9.

[7] Ullrey, D. E. (2004). Nutrient Requirements: Carni-

vores. In Pond, Wilson. Encyclopedia of Animal Science.
CRC Press. p. 670. ISBN 978-0-8247-5496-9.

[8] Foley, James A. (February 7, 2014). Carnivorous, Pre-

Dinosaur Predator was First to Evolve Steak Knife-like
Teeth. Nature World News. Retrieved May 3, 2014.

[9] Zoa Kielan-Jaworowska, Richard L. Cifelli, Zhe-Xi Luo

(2004). Chapter 12: Metatherians. Mammals from the
Age of Dinosaurs: origins, evolution, and structure. New
York: Columbia University Press. pp. 425262. ISBN
0-231-11918-6.

[10] Richard C. Fox (2015) A revision of the Late Cretaceous

Paleocene eutherian mammal Cimolestes Marsh, 1889.
Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (advance online pub-
lication)

[11] Cifelli, Richard L.; Madsen, Scott K. (1998). Tricon-

odont mammals from the medial Cretaceous of Utah.
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 18 (2): 403411. doi:
10.1080/02724634.1998.10011068.

[12] CHRISTIAN DE MUIZON and BRIGITTE LANGE-

BADR, Carnivorous dental adaptations in tribosphenic
mammals and phylogenetic reconstruction, Article rst
published online: 29 MAR 2007 DOI: 10.1111/j.1502-
3931.1997.tb00481

6 Further reading
Glen, Alistair & Dickman, Christopher (Eds) 2014,
Carnivores of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Mel-
bourne, ISBN 978-0-643-10310-8.
4 7 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

7 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

7.1 Text
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7.2 Images
File:Carnivore-lion.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Carnivore-lion.jpg License: CC0 Contributors:
lion Original artist: Mathias Appel
File:Starling_Feeding_Offspring.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Starling_Feeding_Offspring.jpg
License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Ian Dunster
File:Tigre_d'Asie__robe_blanche.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Tigre_d%27Asie_%C3%A0_
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File:Venus_Flytrap_showing_trigger_hairs.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Venus_Flytrap_
showing_trigger_hairs.jpg License: CC BY-SA 2.5 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

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