Carnivore

Carnivore is a common term used to define animals that are dependent solely on the predation of other animals to meet their diet requirements, these are the animals that hunt and eat animals. Carnivores are also referred to as carnivorous animals. The carnivorous animals belong to the taxonomic category of order, they belong to the order named Carnivora. The order  Carnivora order consists of a huge diversity of organisms, they contain mammals that can be both terrestrial mammals and aquatic mammals. Some of the animals hunt their food and also eat plant-based products for their survival, such animals that exploit both animals and plants are known as omnivores. The best example of omnivorous animals is humans. Thus it can be said that all omnivores are carnivorous animals but vice versa does not hold true in every case. This article deals with the study of carnivorous animals, the order Carnivora, the importance of the order Carnivora, the characteristic features of the carnivorous animals, a list of carnivores, their classification, and distribution.

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About Carnivorous Animals

While attempting to understand nature and behaviour and different other aspects, the first question that arises in the mind is “what animals are carnivores and how can we define carnivores”. Carnivore is an umbrella term that comprises all the flesh-eating animals, the carnivorous animal constitutes both the land and water animals, the list of carnivores includes tigers, lions, seals, sharks, bears, badgers, dogs, and hyenas. It is important to note that that therm carnivore can be applied to every flesh-eating organism from every different taxonomic category, it can include animals from, mollusks, arthropods, or even reptiles but when the discussion is about order Carnivora, only the carnivorous animals that are classified as mammals are discussed. In this article, the discussion is focused on the carnivorous animals that belong to the order Carnivora. The carnivorous animals have huge geographical distribution, almost every landmass contains one or another type of carnivorous animal. Due to the presence of organisms in different landmass and different geographical locations, the carnivorous animals are found to have different morphological adaptions according to the need. In simpler terms, carnivorous animals of different landmass have a different body plan because of differences in the condition of their survival.

Classification of Carnivore

Carnivores are generally classified under the order Carnivora, Carnivora constitutes carnivorous mammals. All the carnivorous animals that come under this order can be further classified among the two suborders. The taxonomic classification of the order Carnivora helps us to understand the evolutionary relationships between different organism, it also provides understanding about how distantly located mammals can be related to each other, and lastly but most importantly the taxonomic classification helps us in understanding the position of the carnivorous animals in the ecological food chain. 

The order Carnivora is divided into two suborders, these suborders share all the species and family of carnivores between them. There are 12 families that are classified in the order Carnivora, important to note that all of them are mammals. The 12 families combined contain a huge species diversity. The number of species that are classified under the families of the order Carnivora is about 274 (two hundred seventy-four species). Among the 12 families of carnivorous animals, 9 of them are classified as a terrestrial carnivorous animal family while 3 of them are classified as aquatic carnivorous mammals. 

The taxonomic classification of the order Carvicvira can be defined as the following, they belong to the kingdom Animalia, the kingdom Animalia is further classified as the phylum. The Carnivora belongs to the phylum Chordata, the characteristic of the phylum is the presence of the completely developed vertebral column, this allows the hypothesis that the animals belonging to this phylum are much evolved and have a completely developed skeletal and nervous system.  The phylum is further divided into the class, all the animals of the Carnivora belong to the class Mammalia. Mammalia is simply characterized by giving birth to their young ones, they do not produce eggs rather the females undergo a gestation period during which the zygote develops into a fetus than a baby, upon the completion of the gestation period the females gives birth to the progeny. The class is further divided into a clade, carnivores belong to the clade named Carnivoramorpha. They are also alternatively known as the Carnivoraformes, the two names arose because of the differences and disputes among the taxonomical society. They are both used as a clade to define the taxonomical hierarchy of the order. The clade is further classified as the order in this case the order is Carnivora. The order can be categorized into suborders and families. The families are ultimately classified into genus which is then classified into species, the species is the unit level of the classification.

Order Carnivora

The order Carnivora includes two suborders, these two suborders are named Fissipedia and Pinnipedia (pinnipeds). The Pinnipedia is more commonly known as the (pinnipeds) are the category that contains all the aquatic mammals of the Carnivora order. This suborder only constitutes the three families, all three families contain the species of aquatic carnivorous mammals. The prior mentioned suborder Fissipedia is the category that contains all the terrestrial or land-dwelling carnivorous animals. This suborder contains 9 of the families. Based on the classification of the order we can very easily answer what animals are carnivores and a list of carnivores can be summarized.

The list and classification of the families and the important carnivorous animals that constitute the family are listed below.

Suborder Fissipedia

This suborder Fissipedia is classified under the order Carnivora. The suborder Fissipedia constitutes all the animals that are classified as terrestrial carnivores. All the animals are mammals, that is they give birth to the young ones. The number of families and their important animals that can be said as defining animals of the family are mentioned below

1. Family Mustelidae, this family includes weasels and related species. There are approximately 54 species in 21 genera. The family is subdivided into 5 subfamilies. They are distributed in almost every continent except Australia. 

2. Family Herpestidae, the defining animal of this family is mongooses. There are 37 species, which belong to 18 genera. The family Herpestidae can be divided into 2 subfamilies, they were found in the Old World.

3. Family Felidae, this family is one of the most important and most widely discussed families of the Carnivora.  The key members of this family include felines, they are more commonly known as the cats. It includes 37 species that belong to 18 genera of the family. There are three subfamilies that are classified under the family.

4. Family Canidae, this family contains canines. The canine includes animals like foxes, wolves, jackals, and other members of the dog family. This family includes approximately 13 genera. The 13 genera contain 35 species of carnivorous. They are naturally found worldwide, they are introduced in Australia.

5. Family Viverridae, this family includes civets and related species. Civets can be described as a long body structure and short leg carnivorous animals. Three are 35 species which are divided among 20 genera. The family is divided into 6 subfamilies. The animals of this family are found in the Old World which includes  Africa, southern Europe, and Asia.

6. Family Procyonidae, this family includes the key animals such as raccoons and their related species. There are 6 genera that are classified under this family, the 6 genera contain 18 species. The family is further classified into 2 subfamilies, found in the New World is America, North America, and other parts. The key animals of this family also include animals like ringtails, cacomistles, coatis, kinkajous, olingos, and olinguitos. It is interesting to note that this group of animals are omnivores. 

7. Family Mephitidae, this family mainly includes skunks and stink badgers. The key features of this family of carnivorous wild animal is the presence of the short, muscular limbs, elongated claws, a stocky body, and scent spraying anal glands. The family consists of 4 genera, genera consist of approximately 11 species found in North, Central, and South America, and Southeast Asia which includes countries like Indonesia and the Philippines.

8. Family Ursidae, the key animal of the family, constitutes bears. There are 2 subfamilies that are classified under this family. This family includes 6 genera, across the 6 genera there are a total of 9 species that are classified as the member of the family. They are found in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.

9. Family Hyaenidae as the name suggests consist of hyenas and the aardwolf. There are 3 subfamilies that are classified under this superfamily. There are about 4 genera each gerbera contains a single species, that is there are 4 species that are uniformly distributed among genera. They are mainly found in Africa and southern Asia.

Suborder Pinnipedia 

This suborder belongs to the order Carnivora. The suborder Pinnipeds is more commonly known as pinnipeds. This suborder mainly constitutes the aquatic carnivore animals, since they are classified under the order Carnivora all the aquatic animals under this classification are mammals, this suborder includes animals like eared seals, true seals, and walruses. The characteristic of this order is the presence of fins on the animals that can be used as foot, they are more commonly known as the fin-footed animals. They also have a torpedo-shaped body that facilitates easy movement through the water. This suborder consists of three families; all the families are primarily found in the marine ecosystem. All the 3 subfamilies are further classified into 18 genres that collection contains approximately 34 species. The families are classified under this order, and the key animals of the families are listed below. 

1. Family Phocidae, this family consists of the true seals. True seals are the seals that lack ear structure from the anatomy of their body. They are also sometimes commonly referred to as crawling seals. There are a total of 19 species that are classified among 10 genera.

2. Family Otariidae, this family of the suborder consists of the eared seals. The animals of this family are also known as otariids. They are alternatively called otary. The common name of the eared seals is lion seals and fur seals. This family contains 7 genres which further consist of 14 species.

3. Family Odobenidae, this family contains only one living species. This species is walrus. Walrus is an Arctic species. The family used to have species diversity but during the course of evolution, the only living member that survived is walrus.  The walrus has characteristic features like the presence of long white tusks, grizzly whiskers, flat flippers, and bodies full of blubber.

Carnivorous Wild Animals

The carnivorous wild animals contain a lot of diversity among the animal species, but the focus is on carnivorous mammals in this article. The answer to  “what animals are carnivores” can be defined using a simple statement: all the animals that depend partially or completely on the meat of other animals as a part of their diet are termed as carnivores. Mentioned below is the list of carnivores:

Terrestrial Carnivorous Wild Animal

1. Weasel

2. Mongoose 

3. Cats (tiger, lion, leopard, and jaguar)

4. Dogs (wolves, foxes, jackal)

5. Civets 

6. Raccoons and their relative species like ringtails, cacomistles, coatis, kinkajous, olingos, and olinguitos

7. Skunks and stink badgers

8. Bears 

Aquatic Carnivorous Wild Animals

1. Seals

2. Walrus

3. Lion seals

Distinguishing Feature

All the carnivores irrespective of their order are known to be agile and have huge strength, but there are certain features that allow the distinction between the carnivore of order Carnivora from other wild carnivorous animals. The main distinctive features include jaw articulation, feet anatomy, overall tooth pattern and the shape of individual teeth.

Importance of Carnivores

It is important to state that carnivores hold the top position in a food chain. Apart from being the top predator, they play a crucial role in maintaining the ecosystem. Any carnivore whether being a mammal or some other animal they help in maintaining balance in an ecosystem. The predator-prey relationship between the herbivore and the carnivore affects the particular predator and prey but needless to say they also affect the dynamic, competition, and resource availability among other animals of the ecosystem. This direct and indirect interaction among various animals of the ecosystem leads to a well-balanced ecosystem. Over predation or low predation by carnivorous mammals or carnivorous wild animals may also lead to disturbance in the natural ecosystem. The over predation may lead to the extinction of the prey species and population increase (population blast) in the competitor of the prey species. 

This might lead to permanently changing the species diversity of animals over the landscape, the continuous over predation by carnivorous mammals may ultimately lead to the extinction of the predator itself as a result of resource scarcity.

Similarly, if there are a low number of predators, like carnivorous mammals or carnivorous reptiles and other carnivores, there might be an increase in the population of the prey of these animals. The population blast in the prey may lead to increased interspecies competition, exploitation of natural resources, and the fauna of the ecosystem faces drastic stress. This can lead to the extinction of some of the fauna thus disturbing the natural balance of the ecosystem.

It can thus be stated that carnivores, in general, play an important role in maintaining the natural balance of the ecosystem.

Conclusion

Carnivores can be described as animals that hunt or eat the flesh of other animals for their survival, they may be partially or completely dependent on the meat of other animals. The carnivores are of different types including animals from the reptile, mollusk, and arthropod, this article focuses on the carnivore of the mammal category or phylum. The order of the carnivores belonging to the Mammalia phylum can be termed as Carnivora. The carnivores are distributed among wide landscapes, there is practical habitat on the planet that lacks the mammalian carnivores, they are present in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. There are about 12c families that are classified under this order, these families collectively consist of 270 to 280 species of wild carnivorous animals. The animals of Carnivora order differ from other animals that are carnivorous in terms of jaw articulation, teeth pattern (dentation), and foot anatomy especially the number of toes, lack of opposability of the hind toe, type of claws, and fusion of certain bones.