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Carnivore

January 31, 2023

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 /ˈkɑːrnɪvɔːr/, or meat-eater (Latin, caro, genitive carnis, meaning meat or "flesh" and vorare meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other soft tissues) whether through hunting or scavenging.[1][2]

Lions are obligate carnivores consuming only animal flesh for their nutritional requirements

Nomenclature

Mammal order

The technical term for mammals in the order Carnivora is carnivoran, and they are so-named because most member species in the group have a carnivorous diet, but the similarity of the name of the order and the name of the diet causes confusion.

Many but not all carnivorans are meat eaters; a few, such as the large and small cats (felidae) are obligate carnivores (see below). Other classes of carnivore are highly variable. The Ursids, for example: While the Arctic polar bear eats meat almost exclusively (more than 90% of its diet is meat), almost all other bear species are omnivorous, and one species, the giant panda, is nearly exclusively herbivorous.[3]

Dietary carnivory is not a distinguishing trait of the order: Many mammals with highly carnivorous diets are not members of the order Carnivora. Cetaceans, for example, all eat other animals, but are paradoxically members of the almost exclusively plant-eating hooved mammals.

Carnivorous diet

Animals that depend solely on animal flesh for their nutrient requirements are called hypercarnivores or obligate carnivores, while those that also consume non-animal food are called mesocarnivores, or facultative carnivores, or omnivores (there are no clear distinctions).[2] A carnivore at the top of the food chain (adults not preyed upon by other animals) is termed an apex predator, regardless of whether it is an obligate or facultative carnivore.

 
Members of the plant kingdom can live on meat too, such as the Venus flytrap, a carnivorous plant

Outside the animal kingdom, there are several genera containing carnivorous plants (predominantly insectivores) and several phyla containing carnivorous fungi (preying mostly on microscopic invertebrates, such as nematodes, amoebae, and springtails).

Subcategories of carnivory

Carnivores are sometimes characterized by their type of prey. For example, animals that eat mainly insects and similar invertebrates are called insectivores, while those that eat mainly fish are called piscivores.

Carnivores may alternatively be classified according to the percentage of meat in their diet. The diet of a hypercarnivore consists of more than 70% meat, that of a mesocarnivore 30–70%, and that of a hypocarnivore less than 30%, with the balance consisting of non-animal foods, such as fruits, other plant material, or fungi.

Omnivores also consume both animal and non-animal food, and apart from their more general definition, there is no clearly defined ratio of plant vs. animal material that distinguishes a facultative carnivore from an omnivore.[4]

Obligate carnivores

 
The Bengal tiger's large canines and strong jaws reveal its place as an apex predator
 
Lions are voracious carnivores; they require more than 7 kilograms of meat daily. A major component of their diet is the meat of large mammals, such as this buffalo.

Obligate or "true" carnivores are those whose diet requires nutrients found only in animal flesh. While obligate carnivores might be able to ingest small amounts of plant matter, they lack the necessary physiology required to fully digest it. Some obligate carnivorous mammals will ingest vegetation as an emetic, to self-induce vomiting the food that upset their stomachs.[5]

Obligate carnivores are diverse. The amphibian axolotl consumes mainly worms and larvae in its environment, but if necessary will consume algae. All felids, including the domestic cat, require a diet of primarily animal flesh and organs.[6] Specifically, cats have high protein requirements and their metabolisms appear unable to synthesize essential nutrients such as retinol, arginine, taurine, and arachidonic acid; thus, in nature, they must consume flesh to supply these nutrients.[7]

Characteristics of carnivores

Characteristics commonly associated with carnivores include strength, speed, and keen senses for hunting, as well as teeth and claws for capturing and tearing prey. However, some carnivores do not hunt and are scavengers, lacking the physical characteristics to bring down prey; in addition, most hunting carnivores will scavenge when the opportunity arises. Carnivores have comparatively short digestive systems, as they are not required to break down the tough cellulose found in plants.

Many hunting animals have evolved eyes facing forward, enabling depth perception. This is almost universal among mammalian predators, while most reptile and amphibian predators have eyes facing sideways.

Prehistory of carnivory

Main articles: Predation § Evolutionary history, and Evolutionary history of life

Predation (the eating of one living creature by another for nutrition) predates the rise of commonly recognized carnivores by hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of years. Indeed: It began with single-celled organisms, before multicellular creatures, and so carnivory predates the clear distinction between plants and animals (herbivory / carnivory).

Proterozoic origin

The earliest predators were microbial organisms, which engulfed or grazed on others. Because the earliest fossil record is the poorest, these first predators could date back anywhere between 1 and over 2.7 Gya (billion years ago).[8]

The rise of eukaryotic cells at around 2.7 Gya, the rise of multicellular organisms at about 2 Gya, and the rise of mobile predators (around 600 Mya – 2 Gya, probably around 1 Gya) have all been attributed to early predatory behavior,[8] and many very early remains show evidence of boreholes or other markings attributed to small predator species.[8]

Devonian land-predators

Among more familiar species, the first vertebrate carnivores were fish, and then amphibians that moved on to land. Early tetrapods were large amphibious piscivores. The first tetrapods, or land-dwelling vertebrates, were piscivorous amphibians called labyrinthodonts. They gave rise to insectivorous vertebrates and, later, to predators of other tetrapods.[9]

Some scientists assert that Dimetrodon "was the first terrestrial vertebrate to develop the curved, serrated teeth that enable a predator to eat prey much larger than itself."[10] While amphibians continued to feed on fish and later insects, reptiles began exploring two new food types: tetrapods (carnivory) and then plants (herbivory). Carnivory was a natural transition from insectivory for medium and large tetrapods, requiring minimal adaptation; in contrast, a complex set of adaptations was necessary for feeding on highly fibrous plant materials.[9]

Mesozoic

In the Mesozoic, some theropod dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex are thought probably to have been obligate carnivores.

Though the theropods were the larger carnivores, several carnivorous mammal groups were already present. Most notable are the gobiconodontids, the triconodontid Jugulator, the deltatheroideans and Cimolestes. Many of these, such as Repenomamus, Jugulator and Cimolestes, were among the largest mammals in their faunal assemblages, capable of attacking dinosaurs.[11][12][13]

Cenozoic

In the early-to-mid-Cenozoic, the dominant predator forms were mammals: hyaenodonts, oxyaenids, entelodonts, ptolemaiidans, arctocyonids and mesonychians, representing a great diversity of eutherian carnivores in the northern continents and Africa. In South America, sparassodonts were dominant, while Australia saw the presence of several marsupial predators, such as the dasyuromorphs and thylacoleonids. From the Miocene to the present, the dominant carnivorous mammals have been carnivoramorphs.

Most carnivorous mammals, from dogs to deltatheridiums, share several dental adaptations, such as carnassialiforme teeth, long canines and even similar tooth replacement patterns.[14] Most aberrant are thylacoleonids, with a diprodontan dentition completely unlike that of any other mammal; and eutriconodonts like gobioconodontids and Jugulator, with a three-cusp anatomy which nevertheless functioned similarly to carnassials.[11][15]

See also

References

  1. ^ Ullrey, Duane E. "Nutrient". Encyclopedia of Animal Science.
  2. ^ a b Ullrey, Duane E. "Carnivores". Encyclopedia of Animal Science. Mammals.
  3. ^ "What do pandas eat?". panda.org. World Wide Fund for Nature. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
  4. ^ Ullrey, Duane E. "Omnivores". Encyclopedia of Animal Science. Mammals.
  5. ^ Armstrong, P. Jane; Gross, Kathy L.; Becvarova, Iveta; Debraekeleer, Jacques (2010). "Introduction to Feeding Normal Cats" (PDF). Small Animal Clinical Nutrition. pp. 371–372. (PDF) from the original on 2021-05-12. Retrieved 17 January 2022. Because grass is not digested within the cat's gastrointestinal (GI) tract, it acts as a local irritant and sometimes stimulates vomiting. Thus, grass eating may serve as a purgative to eliminate hair or other indigestible material.
  6. ^ Velegrand-Defretin, Veronique (1994). "Differences between cats and dogs: A nutritional view". Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. 53 (1): 15–24. doi:10.1079/pns19940004. PMID 8029223.
  7. ^ Ullrey, D.E. (2004). "Carnivores". In Pond, Wilson (ed.). Encyclopedia of Animal Science. Mammals. CRC Press. p. 591. ISBN 978-0-8247-5496-9.
    Ullrey, D.E. (2004). "Nutrient requirements: Carnivores". Encyclopedia of Animal Science. p. 670. ISBN 9780824754969.
  8. ^ a b c Bengtson, Stefan (October 2002). "Origins and early evolution of predation" (PDF). The Paleontological Society Papers. Cambridge University Press. 8: 289–318. doi:10.1017/S1089332600001133. ISSN 1089-3326. (PDF) from the original on 2008-09-10.
  9. ^ a b Sahney, S.; Benton, M.J.; Falcon-Lang, H.J. (2010). "Rainforest collapse triggered Pennsylvanian tetrapod diversification in Euramerica". Geology. 38 (12): 1079–1082. Bibcode:2010Geo....38.1079S. doi:10.1130/G31182.1.
  10. ^ Foley, James A. (7 February 2014). "Carnivorous, pre-dinosaur predator was first to evolve steak knife-like teeth". Nature World News. Retrieved 3 May 2014.
  11. ^ a b Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia; Cifelli, Richard L.; Luo, Zhe-Xi (2004). "Chapter 12: Metatherians". Mammals from the Age of Dinosaurs: Origins, evolution, and structure. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. pp. 425–262. ISBN 0-231-11918-6.
  12. ^ Fox, Richard C. (2015). "A revision of the late Cretaceous–Paleocene eutherian mammal Cimolestes (Marsh, 1889)". Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 52 (12): 1137–1149. Bibcode:2015CaJES..52.1137F. doi:10.1139/cjes-2015-0113.
  13. ^ Cifelli, Richard L.; Madsen, Scott K. (1998). "Triconodont mammals from the medial Cretaceous of Utah". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 18 (2): 403–411. doi:10.1080/02724634.1998.10011068.
  14. ^ de Muizon, Christian; Lange-Badré, Brigitte (1997). "Carnivorous dental adaptations in tribosphenic mammals and phylogenetic reconstruction". Lethaia. 30 (4): 353–366. doi:10.1111/j.1502-3931.1997.tb00481.x.
  15. ^ . Que Come (in Spanish). Eating Encyclopedia. 2017-02-02. Archived from the original on 2019-02-24.

Further reading

  • Glen, Alistair & Dickman, Christopher, eds. (2014). Carnivores of Australia. Melbourne, AU: CSIRO Publishing. ISBN 978-0-643-10310-8.

January 31, 2023
carnivore, this, article, about, general, concept, meat, eating, animal, mammal, order, carnivora, other, uses, disambiguation, carnivore, ɑːr, ɔːr, meat, eater, latin, caro, genitive, carnis, meaning, meat, flesh, vorare, meaning, devour, animal, plant, whose. 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 ˈ k ɑːr n ɪ v ɔːr or meat eater Latin caro genitive carnis meaning meat or flesh and vorare meaning to devour is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues mainly muscle fat and other soft tissues whether through hunting or scavenging 1 2 Lions are obligate carnivores consuming only animal flesh for their nutritional requirements Contents 1 Nomenclature 1 1 Mammal order 1 2 Carnivorous diet 1 3 Subcategories of carnivory 2 Obligate carnivores 3 Characteristics of carnivores 4 Prehistory of carnivory 4 1 Proterozoic origin 4 2 Devonian land predators 4 3 Mesozoic 4 4 Cenozoic 5 See also 6 References 7 Further readingNomenclature EditMammal order Edit The technical term for mammals in the order Carnivora is carnivoran and they are so named because most member species in the group have a carnivorous diet but the similarity of the name of the order and the name of the diet causes confusion Many but not all carnivorans are meat eaters a few such as the large and small cats felidae are obligate carnivores see below Other classes of carnivore are highly variable The Ursids for example While the Arctic polar bear eats meat almost exclusively more than 90 of its diet is meat almost all other bear species are omnivorous and one species the giant panda is nearly exclusively herbivorous 3 Dietary carnivory is not a distinguishing trait of the order Many mammals with highly carnivorous diets are not members of the order Carnivora Cetaceans for example all eat other animals but are paradoxically members of the almost exclusively plant eating hooved mammals Carnivorous diet Edit Animals that depend solely on animal flesh for their nutrient requirements are called hypercarnivores or obligate carnivores while those that also consume non animal food are called mesocarnivores or facultative carnivores or omnivores there are no clear distinctions 2 A carnivore at the top of the food chain adults not preyed upon by other animals is termed an apex predator regardless of whether it is an obligate or facultative carnivore Members of the plant kingdom can live on meat too such as the Venus flytrap a carnivorous plant Outside the animal kingdom there are several genera containing carnivorous plants predominantly insectivores and several phyla containing carnivorous fungi preying mostly on microscopic invertebrates such as nematodes amoebae and springtails Subcategories of carnivory Edit Carnivores are sometimes characterized by their type of prey For example animals that eat mainly insects and similar invertebrates are called insectivores while those that eat mainly fish are called piscivores Carnivores may alternatively be classified according to the percentage of meat in their diet The diet of a hypercarnivore consists of more than 70 meat that of a mesocarnivore 30 70 and that of a hypocarnivore less than 30 with the balance consisting of non animal foods such as fruits other plant material or fungi Omnivores also consume both animal and non animal food and apart from their more general definition there is no clearly defined ratio of plant vs animal material that distinguishes a facultative carnivore from an omnivore 4 Obligate carnivores Edit The Bengal tiger s large canines and strong jaws reveal its place as an apex predator Lions are voracious carnivores they require more than 7 kilograms of meat daily A major component of their diet is the meat of large mammals such as this buffalo Obligate or true carnivores are those whose diet requires nutrients found only in animal flesh While obligate carnivores might be able to ingest small amounts of plant matter they lack the necessary physiology required to fully digest it Some obligate carnivorous mammals will ingest vegetation as an emetic to self induce vomiting the food that upset their stomachs 5 Obligate carnivores are diverse The amphibian axolotl consumes mainly worms and larvae in its environment but if necessary will consume algae All felids including the domestic cat require a diet of primarily animal flesh and organs 6 Specifically cats have high protein requirements and their metabolisms appear unable to synthesize essential nutrients such as retinol arginine taurine and arachidonic acid thus in nature they must consume flesh to supply these nutrients 7 Characteristics of carnivores EditCharacteristics commonly associated with carnivores include strength speed and keen senses for hunting as well as teeth and claws for capturing and tearing prey However some carnivores do not hunt and are scavengers lacking the physical characteristics to bring down prey in addition most hunting carnivores will scavenge when the opportunity arises Carnivores have comparatively short digestive systems as they are not required to break down the tough cellulose found in plants Many hunting animals have evolved eyes facing forward enabling depth perception This is almost universal among mammalian predators while most reptile and amphibian predators have eyes facing sideways Prehistory of carnivory EditMain articles Predation Evolutionary history and Evolutionary history of life Predation the eating of one living creature by another for nutrition predates the rise of commonly recognized carnivores by hundreds of millions perhaps billions of years Indeed It began with single celled organisms before multicellular creatures and so carnivory predates the clear distinction between plants and animals herbivory carnivory Proterozoic origin Edit The earliest predators were microbial organisms which engulfed or grazed on others Because the earliest fossil record is the poorest these first predators could date back anywhere between 1 and over 2 7 Gya billion years ago 8 The rise of eukaryotic cells at around 2 7 Gya the rise of multicellular organisms at about 2 Gya and the rise of mobile predators around 600 Mya 2 Gya probably around 1 Gya have all been attributed to early predatory behavior 8 and many very early remains show evidence of boreholes or other markings attributed to small predator species 8 Devonian land predators Edit Among more familiar species the first vertebrate carnivores were fish and then amphibians that moved on to land Early tetrapods were large amphibious piscivores The first tetrapods or land dwelling vertebrates were piscivorous amphibians called labyrinthodonts They gave rise to insectivorous vertebrates and later to predators of other tetrapods 9 Some scientists assert that Dimetrodon was the first terrestrial vertebrate to develop the curved serrated teeth that enable a predator to eat prey much larger than itself 10 While amphibians continued to feed on fish and later insects reptiles began exploring two new food types tetrapods carnivory and then plants herbivory Carnivory was a natural transition from insectivory for medium and large tetrapods requiring minimal adaptation in contrast a complex set of adaptations was necessary for feeding on highly fibrous plant materials 9 Mesozoic Edit In the Mesozoic some theropod dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex are thought probably to have been obligate carnivores Though the theropods were the larger carnivores several carnivorous mammal groups were already present Most notable are the gobiconodontids the triconodontid Jugulator the deltatheroideans and Cimolestes Many of these such as Repenomamus Jugulator and Cimolestes were among the largest mammals in their faunal assemblages capable of attacking dinosaurs 11 12 13 Cenozoic Edit In the early to mid Cenozoic the dominant predator forms were mammals hyaenodonts oxyaenids entelodonts ptolemaiidans arctocyonids and mesonychians representing a great diversity of eutherian carnivores in the northern continents and Africa In South America sparassodonts were dominant while Australia saw the presence of several marsupial predators such as the dasyuromorphs and thylacoleonids From the Miocene to the present the dominant carnivorous mammals have been carnivoramorphs Most carnivorous mammals from dogs to deltatheridiums share several dental adaptations such as carnassialiforme teeth long canines and even similar tooth replacement patterns 14 Most aberrant are thylacoleonids with a diprodontan dentition completely unlike that of any other mammal and eutriconodonts like gobioconodontids and Jugulator with a three cusp anatomy which nevertheless functioned similarly to carnassials 11 15 See also EditMesocarnivore HerbivoreReferences Edit Ullrey Duane E Nutrient Encyclopedia of Animal Science a b Ullrey Duane E Carnivores Encyclopedia of Animal Science Mammals What do pandas eat panda org World Wide Fund for Nature Retrieved 6 December 2021 Ullrey Duane E Omnivores Encyclopedia of Animal Science Mammals Armstrong P Jane Gross Kathy L Becvarova Iveta Debraekeleer Jacques 2010 Introduction to Feeding Normal Cats PDF Small Animal Clinical Nutrition pp 371 372 Archived PDF from the original on 2021 05 12 Retrieved 17 January 2022 Because grass is not digested within the cat s gastrointestinal GI tract it acts as a local irritant and sometimes stimulates vomiting Thus grass eating may serve as a purgative to eliminate hair or other indigestible material Velegrand Defretin Veronique 1994 Differences between cats and dogs A nutritional view Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 53 1 15 24 doi 10 1079 pns19940004 PMID 8029223 Ullrey D E 2004 Carnivores In Pond Wilson ed Encyclopedia of Animal Science Mammals CRC Press p 591 ISBN 978 0 8247 5496 9 Ullrey D E 2004 Nutrient requirements Carnivores Encyclopedia of Animal Science p 670 ISBN 9780824754969 a b c Bengtson Stefan October 2002 Origins and early evolution of predation PDF The Paleontological Society Papers Cambridge University Press 8 289 318 doi 10 1017 S1089332600001133 ISSN 1089 3326 Archived PDF from the original on 2008 09 10 a b Sahney S Benton M J Falcon Lang H J 2010 Rainforest collapse triggered Pennsylvanian tetrapod diversification in Euramerica Geology 38 12 1079 1082 Bibcode 2010Geo 38 1079S doi 10 1130 G31182 1 Foley James A 7 February 2014 Carnivorous pre dinosaur predator was first to evolve steak knife like teeth Nature World News Retrieved 3 May 2014 a b Kielan Jaworowska Zofia Cifelli Richard L Luo Zhe Xi 2004 Chapter 12 Metatherians Mammals from the Age of Dinosaurs Origins evolution and structure New York NY Columbia University Press pp 425 262 ISBN 0 231 11918 6 Fox Richard C 2015 A revision of the late Cretaceous Paleocene eutherian mammal Cimolestes Marsh 1889 Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 52 12 1137 1149 Bibcode 2015CaJES 52 1137F doi 10 1139 cjes 2015 0113 Cifelli Richard L Madsen Scott K 1998 Triconodont mammals from the medial Cretaceous of Utah Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 18 2 403 411 doi 10 1080 02724634 1998 10011068 de Muizon Christian Lange Badre Brigitte 1997 Carnivorous dental adaptations in tribosphenic mammals and phylogenetic reconstruction Lethaia 30 4 353 366 doi 10 1111 j 1502 3931 1997 tb00481 x Animales carnivoros Ejemplos alimentacion y curiosidades Que Come in Spanish Eating Encyclopedia 2017 02 02 Archived from the original on 2019 02 24 Further reading EditGlen Alistair amp Dickman Christopher eds 2014 Carnivores of Australia Melbourne AU CSIRO Publishing ISBN 978 0 643 10310 8 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Carnivore amp oldid 1135605625, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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