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| Albany Pitcher Plant- Sarah Stierch |
Herbivores eat only plants. Omnivores eat meat and plants - but usually only the fruits of the plants. Generally speaking, only pure herbivores can digest grasses. Plants get energy from the sun and nutrients from the soil. Decomposers and scavengers process dead plants and animals. Carnivores hunt and eat animals. Hunting requires large amounts of energy, which requires lots of calories. Meat has the highest amount of calories of any food.
Carnivores come in all sizes, from the huge polar and kodiac bears of the Arctic to bacteria too small to see without a good microscope. We can see carnivores flying in our skies and there are even carnivorous plants. Many carnivores swim in fresh or salt waters. Some scavengers are also classified as carnivores.
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| Bengal Tiger - Hollingsworth, John and Karen |
There is also a mammalia order called Carnivora which includes mostly carnivores. Although some are omnivores - so you can't believe everything you read.
Carnivores need some way to 'catch' their food. Mammal carnivores tend to be adapted for actively hunting their prey. Plant carnivores use sticky liquids to trap their insect prey and some spiders use sticky webs as traps. Some snakes and spiders use poisons that weaken their prey. Creatures that actively hunt tend to have sharp front teeth for gripping their food. A praying mantis waits silently for food to come by. There are even carnivorous fungi that trap tiny worms with suffocating rings.
Carnivores are further divided into groups. There are hypercarnivores and mesocarnivores. Hypercarnivores need to have at least 70% of their food from meat. Mesocarnivores require at least 50% of their diet from meat. Hypocarnivores depend on meat for less than 30% of their diet and usually called omnivores. There is a specialized class of carnivores called obligate carnivores. These carnivores require an all-meat diet as their bodies can't process any amount of plant matter. All cats, from house cats to lions and tigers are obligate carnivores.
If you want to get into this further, carnivores are divided further into tertiary and quaternary consumers. A tertiary consumer eats herbivores, like wolves eating deer. A quaternary consumer eats other carnivores, like orcas eating seals.Some carnivores eat a narrow class of creatures. We have insectivores (eating insects), piscivores (eating fish), ovivores (eating eggs) and scavengers (dead stuff). There are many others. There is also the opposite of picky. I recently wrote about Peregrine Falcons who eat anything that moves.
Carnivores are very specialized creatures. Their digestive systems require meat and aren't as flexible as omnivores. When something disastrous happens to an ecosystem the carnivores usually don't survive unless they are very flexible. Why did cougars survive and the saber-toothed cat die out? Recent research says that cougars were flexible about food while the other cats only wanted specific animals. Carnivores are an important part of the ecosystem as they keep other creatures in check. The existence of large carnivores spurred humanity to develop tools and weapons. Humans also gathered in communities in order to help protect themselves.
There are fewer carnivores than omnivores. Large carnivores are disappearing as their food disappears or is better protected. I hope my child will still see some when he is an adult. Although humans are omnivores, we have managed to out hunt the carnivores. That certainly says something.
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/games/animaldietgame.htm
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/carnivore/?ar_a=1
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Carnivora/
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