In other words an animal may be considered a carnivore if it prefers feeding on animal matter over plant matter. Animals that must eat meat in order to thrive are referred to as obligate carnivore]]s, whereas animals that exclusively feed on animal tissue are known as hypercarnivores. An apex predator is a carnivore that sits at the top of the foodchain.
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In other words an animal may be considered a carnivore if it prefers feeding on animal matter over plant matter. Animals that must eat meat in order to thrive are referred to as obligate carnivore]]s, whereas animals that exclusively feed on animal tissue are known as hypercarnivores. An apex predator is a carnivore that sits at the top of the foodchain.
Plants that capture and digest insects are called carnivorous plants. Similarly fungi that capture microscopic animals are often called carnivorous fungi.
Classification
[[image:VFT ne1.JPG Carnivores are classified by their dietary behaviour. However, because the specific definition of what exactly meat is can be flexible, so too can the definition of carnivore. In the strictest sense, meat may refer to the flesh of mammalian species, but in a broader sense the term might be used to refer to any animal tissue considered food.
Carnivores that eat insects and similar invertebrates primarily or exclusively are called insectivores, while those that eat fish primarily or exclusively are called piscivores. Carnivory that entails the consumption of members of an organism's own species is referred to as cannibalism. This includes sexual cannibalism and cannibalistic infanticide.
The word "carnivore" sometimes refers to the mammalian Order Carnivora, but this is somewhat misleading. Although many Carnivora fit the definition of being exclusively meat eaters, not all do. For example, bears are members of Carnivora, yet are not carnivores in the dietary sense, and pandas are almost exclusively herbivorous. In addition, some full-time (dolphins, shrews) and part-time (humans, pigs) meat-eating mammalian species, as well as all carnivorous non-mammals, are not members of Carnivora.
Outside of the animal kingdom, there are several genera containing carnivorous plants and several phyla containing carnivorous fungi. The former are predominantly insectivores, while the latter prey mostly on microscopic invertebrates such as nematodes, amoeba and springtails.
Obligate carnivores
An obligate or true carnivore is an animal that must eat meat in order to survive. They may consume other products presented to them, especially animal products like eggs and bone marrow or sweet sugary substances like honey and syrup, but, as these items are not essential, they do not consume these on a regular basis. True carnivores lack the physiology required for the efficient digestion of vegetable matter, and, in fact, some carnivorous mammals eat vegetation specifically as an emetic. The domestic cat is a prime example of an obligate carnivore, as are all of the other felids.
