Carnivore

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This article is about the general concept of a meat-eating animal. For the mammal order, see Carnivora. For other uses, see Carnivore (disambiguation).
"Carnivorous" redirects here. For the Hawkwind album, see Carnivorous (album).

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

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 nutrition and energy requirements are met by consumption of animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other soft tissues) as food, whether through predation or scavenging.[1][2]

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

ursids (bears), 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

plant-eating hooved mammals
.

Carnivorous diet

Animals that depend solely on animal flesh for their nutrient requirements in nature are called

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. In captivity or domestic settings, obligate carnivores like cats and crocodiles can, in principle, get all their required nutrients from processed food made from plant and synthetic sources.[4][5]

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

amoebae, and springtails
).

Subcategories of carnivory

Carnivores are sometimes characterized by their type of prey. For example, animals that eat mainly insects and similar terrestrial arthropods are called insectivores, while those that eat mainly soft-bodied invertebrates are called vermivores. 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

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.[6]

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 in the wild. While obligate carnivores might be able to

emetic, a food that upsets their stomachs, to self-induce vomiting.[7]

Obligate carnivores are diverse. The amphibian

domestic cats, require a diet of primarily animal flesh and organs.[8] 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.[9]

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:
Evolutionary history of life

endosymbiosis, might have led to symbiogenesis that gave rise to eukaryotes and eukaryotic autotrophs such as green and red algae
.

Proterozoic origin

The earliest predators were microorganisms, which engulfed and "swallowed" other smaller cells (i.e. phagocytosis) and digested them internally. Because the earliest fossil record is poor, these first predators could date back anywhere between 1 and over 2.7 bya (billion years ago).[10]

The rise of

motile predators (around 600 Mya – 2 bya, probably around 1 bya) have all been attributed to early predatory behavior, and many very early remains show evidence of boreholes or other markings attributed to small predator species.[10]

The sudden disappearance of the precambrian Ediacaran biota at the end-Ediacaran extinction, who were mostly bottom-dwelling filter feeders and grazers, has been hypothetized to be partly caused by increased predation by newer animals with hardened skeleton and mouthparts.[11]

Paleozoic

The degradation of

Cambrian-Ordovician extinction event, the niches of large carnivores were taken over by nautiloid cephalopods such as Cameroceras and later eurypterids such as Jaekelopterus during the Ordovician and Silurian
periods.

The first

temnospondyls, became terrestrial apex predators that hunt other tetrapods.[12]

The dominance of temnospondyls around the wetland habitats throughout the

sphenacodontoid synapsids such as Dimetrodon "were the first terrestrial vertebrate to develop the curved, serrated teeth that enable a predator to eat prey much larger than itself".[13]

Mesozoic

In the

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

Jugulator, the deltatheroidans and Cimolestes. Many of these, such as Repenomamus, Jugulator and Cimolestes, were among the largest mammals in their faunal assemblages, capable of attacking dinosaurs.[14][15][16]

Cenozoic

In the early-to-mid-Cenozoic, the dominant predator forms were mammals:

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

eutriconodonts like gobiconodontids and Jugulator, with a three-cusp anatomy which nevertheless functioned similarly to carnassials.[14][18]

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. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 6 April 2024. {{cite news}}: |last2= has generic name (help
    )
  5. ^ "Crocodiles in Zimbabwe fed vegetarian diet to make better handbags". The Telegraph. 8 April 2014. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  6. ^ Ullrey, Duane E. "Omnivores". Encyclopedia of Animal Science. Mammals.
  7. ^ 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 12 May 2021. 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.
  8. ^ Velegrand-Defretin, Veronique (1994). "Differences between cats and dogs: A nutritional view". Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. 53 (1): 15–24.
    PMID 8029223
    .
  9. ^ 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. CRC Press. p. 670.
    ISBN 9780824754969
    .
  10. ^ a b Bengtson, Stefan (October 2002). "Origins and early evolution of predation" (PDF). The Paleontological Society Papers. 8. Cambridge University Press: 289–318.
    ISSN 1089-3326. Archived
    (PDF) from the original on 10 September 2008.
  11. PMID 16592084
    .
  12. ^ 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.
    doi:10.1130/G31182.1
    .
  13. ^ 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.
  14. ^ 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
    .
  15. ^ 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.
    doi:10.1139/cjes-2015-0113
    .
  16. ^ 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
    .
  17. ^ de Muizon, Christian; Lange-Badré, Brigitte (1997). "Carnivorous dental adaptations in tribosphenic mammals and phylogenetic reconstruction".
    doi:10.1111/j.1502-3931.1997.tb00481.x
    .
  18. ^ "Animales carnivoros. Ejemplos, alimentacion y curiosidades". Que Come (in Spanish). Eating Encyclopedia. 2 February 2017. Archived from the original on 24 February 2019.

Further reading

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