Carnivore

Carnivores (from Latin caro [genitive carnis] "flesh" and vorare "to devour, eat greedily") or zoophages (from ancient Greek ζῷον zōon "animal" and φαγεῖν phagein "to eat") are animals, plants, and fungi that feed primarily or exclusively on animal tissue.

This distinguishes them from herbivores, which prefer mainly plant foods, and omnivores, such as humans, whose diet is mixed. Scavengers, on the other hand, are organisms that feed on carrion, animals that they have found dead. They cannot always be clearly separated from carnivores.

Carnivores include animal species of almost all animal phyla. Among the vertebrates, for example, many species of mammals belong to it, especially in the orders of predators, insectivores, whales and predatory prey species, also numerous species of birds and reptiles, ­especially birds of prey, crocodiles, monitor lizards and snakes, as well as many species of fish, not least among the sharks. Among arthropods, carnivory is much more widespread. A large proportion of the arachnids (Arachnida), especially web spiders (Araneae) and scorpions (Scorpiones), feed predominantly on other arthropods. Mites (Acari) and weaver-carnivores (Opiliones), on the other hand, are only partially carnivorous. There are also numerous carnivorous groups among insects, e.g., predatory bugs (Reduviidae), the majority of ground beetle species ­(Carabidae), and Hymenoptera. Among the latter, many parasitoids are found.

Carnivores should not be confused with the mammalian order Carnivora. Carnivora are not necessarily carnivores, and carnivores do not necessarily belong to the order Carnivora. There are carnivores in many evolutionary lineages, both animals and plants. In addition, there are representatives of the carnivores that, like many bears, feed predominantly on plant food and thus belong to the omnivores.

Term differentiation for terrestrial vertebrates

In zoophagous terrestrial vertebrates (Tetrapoda), a distinction is often made between carnivores in the narrower sense and insectivores. While carnivores in the narrower sense feed mainly on the muscle meat (usually self-hunted) of smaller vertebrates, insectivores eat mainly insects and other terrestrial invertebrates (earthworms, land snails). As a rule, these two diets correlate with the body size attained by the representatives of the species in question. Carnivores in the narrower sense are usually larger than insectivores.

The carnivores in the narrower sense are further differentiated into carnivores in the narrowest sense, which feed predominantly on the muscle meat of other tetrapods, and piscivores, which specialize in hunting and eating fish (mostly representatives of the bony fishes). The carnivores in the strictest sense are usually the top predators in their ecosystem.

In the dietary habits of carnivores in particular, a distinction is sometimes made between hypocarnivory (maximum 30% vertebrate meat), mesocarnivory (50-70% vertebrate meat) and hypercarnivory (more than 70% vertebrate meat) on the basis of the proportion of vertebrate meat in the diet.

See also

• Diet
• Consumer (ecology)
• Predator