carnivore

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carnivore

consumer

Also known as: predator

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Also called:: predator

Related Topics:: animal; mesopredator release; apex predator; scavenger; mesopredator

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carnivore, animal whose diet consists of other animals. Adaptations for a carnivorous diet include a variety of hunting behaviours and the development of methods for grasping or otherwise immobilizing the prey. Wolves use their teeth for grasping, owls their claws, and bullfrogs their tongues. Some snakes (e.g., rattlesnakes) use venom to immobilize their prey, and many spiders wrap their victims in thread. Most carnivores are larger than their prey species, although some of the largest carnivores prey on even larger species—for example, tigers on water buffalo and orcas on baleen whales.

Many well-known predators (e.g., lions, weasels, dogs) belong to the mammalian order Carnivora. However, carnivorous mammals are also found in many other orders, including the Insectivora, Cetacea, Marsupialia, and Chiroptera. Likewise, not all mammals in the classification Carnivora are exclusively carnivores.

Certain plants are also carnivorous. The Venus flytrap has leaves modified to act as snap traps. Other plants are equipped with passive devices that work like flypaper or lobster pots.

predation

animal behavior

Also known as: hunting, prey

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Related Topics:: What Eats Snakes?; carnivore; cooperative hunting; hyphal loop; constriction

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predation, in animal behaviour, the pursuit, capture, and killing of animals for food. Predatory animals may be solitary hunters, like the leopard, or they may be group hunters, like wolves.

The senses of predators are adapted in a variety of ways to facilitate hunting behaviour. Visual acuity is great in raptors such as the red-tailed hawk, which soars on high searching for prey. Even on a dark night owls can hear, and focus on, the rustling sound and movement of a mouse. Many insect-eating bats hunt by echolocation, emitting a pulsed, high-frequency sound—in the manner of a ship’s sonar—while flying; the sensory data thus gained guides them to their prey. A flock of white pelicans will cooperate to form a semicircle and, with much flapping of wings, drive fish into shallow water where they are easily captured.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.