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30-564: Jihlava Zoo is located in a valley of the Jihlávka Stream, and is home to about 250 species of exotic animals, including endangered species. The zoo specializes in breeding of big carnivores , monkeys and reptiles . Jihlava Zoo was founded in 1982. In 1994, the zoo was accepted as a member of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA). This article on a zoo , aquarium , safari park , dolphinarium , or aviary

60-652: A facultative carnivore from an omnivore . Obligate or "true" carnivores are those whose diet requires nutrients found only in animal flesh in the wild. While obligate carnivores might be able to ingest small amounts of plant matter, they lack the necessary physiology required to fully digest it. Some obligate carnivorous mammals will ingest vegetation as an emetic , a food that upsets their stomachs, to self-induce vomiting. Obligate carnivores are diverse. The amphibian axolotl consumes mainly worms and larvae in its environment, but if necessary will consume algae. All wild felids , including feral domestic cats , require

90-534: A diet of primarily animal flesh and organs. Specifically, cats have high protein requirements and their metabolisms appear unable to synthesize essential nutrients such as retinol , arginine , taurine , and arachidonic acid ; thus, in nature, they must consume flesh to supply these nutrients. Characteristics commonly associated with carnivores include strength, speed, and keen senses for hunting, as well as teeth and claws for capturing and tearing prey. However, some carnivores do not hunt and are scavengers , lacking

120-517: A diprodontan dentition completely unlike that of any other mammal; and eutriconodonts like gobiconodontids and Jugulator , with a three-cusp anatomy which nevertheless functioned similarly to carnassials. Insectivore An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects . An alternative term is entomophage , which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects . The first vertebrate insectivores were amphibians . When they evolved 400 million years ago,

150-511: A form of endosymbiosis , might have led to symbiogenesis that gave rise to eukaryotes and eukaryotic autotrophs such as green and red algae . The earliest predators were microorganisms , which engulfed and "swallowed" other smaller cells (i.e. phagocytosis ) and digested them internally . Because the earliest fossil record is poor, these first predators could date back anywhere between 1 and over 2.7  bya (billion years ago). The rise of eukaryotic cells at around 2.7 bya,

180-634: A great diversity of eutherian carnivores in the northern continents and Africa . In South America , sparassodonts were dominant, while Australia saw the presence of several marsupial predators, such as the dasyuromorphs and thylacoleonids . From the Miocene to the present, the dominant carnivorous mammals have been carnivoramorphs . Most carnivorous mammals, from dogs to deltatheridiums , share several dental adaptations, such as carnassialiforme teeth, long canines and even similar tooth replacement patterns. Most aberrant are thylacoleonids , with

210-742: A small part of their nutrient intake and in others it might be an indispensable source of nutrients. As a rule, however, such animal food, however valuable it might be as a source of certain critically important minerals, is not the plants' major source of energy , which they generally derive mainly from photosynthesis. Insectivorous plants might consume insects and other animal material trapped adventitiously. However, most species to which such food represents an important part of their intake are specifically, often spectacularly, adapted to attract and secure adequate supplies. Their prey animals typically, but not exclusively, comprise insects and other arthropods . Plants highly adapted to reliance on animal food use

240-537: A variety of mechanisms to secure their prey, such as pitfalls, sticky surfaces, hair-trigger snaps, bladder-traps, entangling furriness, and lobster-pot trap mechanisms. Also known as carnivorous plants , they appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen , such as acidic bogs and rock outcroppings. Insectivorous plants include the Venus flytrap , several types of pitcher plants , butterworts , sundews , bladderworts ,

270-501: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Carnivores A carnivore / ˈ k ɑːr n ɪ v ɔːr / , or meat-eater ( Latin , caro , genitive carnis , meaning meat or "flesh" and vorare meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose nutrition and energy requirements are met by consumption of animal tissues (mainly muscle , fat and other soft tissues ) as food , whether through predation or scavenging . The technical term for mammals in

300-937: Is termed an apex predator , regardless of whether it is an obligate or facultative carnivore. In captivity or domestic settings, obligate carnivores like cats and crocodiles can, in principle, get all their required nutrients from processed food made from plant and synthetic sources. Outside the animal kingdom, there are several genera containing carnivorous plants (predominantly insectivores) and several phyla containing carnivorous fungi (preying mostly on microscopic invertebrates , such as nematodes , amoebae , and springtails ). Carnivores are sometimes characterized by their type of prey . For example, animals that eat mainly insects and similar terrestrial arthropods are called insectivores , while those that eat mainly soft-bodied invertebrates are called vermivores . Those that eat mainly fish are called piscivores . Carnivores may alternatively be classified according to

330-604: The Cambrian substrate revolution led to increased active predation among animals, likely triggering various evolutionary arms races that contributed to the rapid diversification during the Cambrian explosion . Radiodont arthropods , which produced the first apex predators such as Anomalocaris , quickly became the dominant carnivores of the Cambrian sea. After their decline due to the Cambrian-Ordovician extinction event ,

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360-423: The lobe-finned fish , became the dominant carnivores of freshwater wetlands formed by early land plants . Some of these fish became better adapted for breathing air and eventually giving rise to amphibian tetrapods . These early tetrapods were large semi-aquatic piscivores and riparian ambush predators that hunt terrestrial arthropods (mainly arachnids and myriopods ), and one group in particular,

390-437: The order Carnivora is carnivoran , and they are so-named because most member species in the group have a carnivorous diet, but the similarity of the name of the order and the name of the diet causes confusion. Many but not all carnivorans are meat eaters; a few, such as the large and small cats ( Felidae ) are obligate carnivores (see below). Other classes of carnivore are highly variable. The ursids , for example: while

420-635: The sloth bear is perhaps the largest insectivore. Insects also can be insectivores; examples are dragonflies , hornets , ladybugs , robber flies , and praying mantises . Insectivory also features to various degrees amongst primates , such as marmosets , tamarins , tarsiers , galagos and aye-aye . There is some suggestion that the earliest primates were nocturnal , arboreal insectivores. Insectivorous plants are plants that derive some of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoan . The benefit they derive from their catch varies considerably; in some species, it might include

450-524: The temnospondyls , became terrestrial apex predators that hunt other tetrapods. The dominance of temnospondyls around the wetland habitats throughout the Carboniferous forced other amphibians to evolve into amniotes that had adaptations that allowed them to live farther away from water bodies. These amniotes began to evolve both carnivory, which was a natural transition from insectivory requiring minimal adaptation; and herbivory , which took advantage of

480-423: The triconodontid Jugulator , the deltatheroidans and Cimolestes . Many of these, such as Repenomamus , Jugulator and Cimolestes , were among the largest mammals in their faunal assemblages, capable of attacking dinosaurs. In the early-to-mid-Cenozoic, the dominant predator forms were mammals: hyaenodonts , oxyaenids , entelodonts , ptolemaiidans , arctocyonids and mesonychians , representing

510-594: The waterwheel plant , brocchinia and many members of the Bromeliaceae . The list is far from complete, and some plants, such as Roridula species, exploit the prey organisms mainly in a mutualistic relationship with other creatures, such as resident organisms that contribute to the digestion of prey. In particular, animal prey organisms supply carnivorous plants with nitrogen, but they also are important sources of various other soluble minerals, such as potassium and trace elements that are in short supply in environments where

540-497: The Arctic polar bear eats meat almost exclusively (more than 90% of its diet is meat), almost all other bear species are omnivorous , and one species, the giant panda , is nearly exclusively herbivorous . Dietary carnivory is not a distinguishing trait of the order . Many mammals with highly carnivorous diets are not members of the order Carnivora . Cetaceans , for example, all eat other animals, but are paradoxically members of

570-453: The Insectivora taxa have been reclassified; those that have not yet been reclassified and found to be truly related to each other remain in the order Eulipotyphla . Although individually small, insects exist in enormous numbers. Insects make up a very large part of the animal biomass in almost all non-marine, non-polar environments. It has been estimated that the global insect biomass is in

600-452: The abundance of coal forest foliage but in contrast required a complex set of adaptations that was necessary for digesting on the cellulose - and lignin -rich plant materials. After the Carboniferous rainforest collapse , both synapsid and sauropsid amniotes quickly gained dominance as the top terrestrial animals during the subsequent Permian period. Some scientists assert that sphenacodontoid synapsids such as Dimetrodon "were

630-444: The almost exclusively plant-eating hooved mammals . Animals that depend solely on animal flesh for their nutrient requirements in nature are called hypercarnivores or obligate carnivores , whilst those that also consume non-animal food are called mesocarnivores , or facultative carnivores , or omnivores (there are no clear distinctions). A carnivore at the top of the food chain (adults not preyed upon by other animals)

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660-458: The first amphibians were piscivores , with numerous sharp conical teeth, much like a modern crocodile . The same tooth arrangement is however also suited for eating animals with exoskeletons , thus the ability to eat insects is an extension of piscivory. At one time, insectivorous mammals were scientifically classified in an order called Insectivora . This order is now abandoned, as not all insectivorous mammals are closely related. Most of

690-463: The first terrestrial vertebrate to develop the curved, serrated teeth that enable a predator to eat prey much larger than itself". In the Mesozoic , some theropod dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex are thought probably to have been obligate carnivores. Though the theropods were the larger carnivores, several carnivorous mammal groups were already present. Most notable are the gobiconodontids ,

720-585: The niches of large carnivores were taken over by nautiloid cephalopods such as Cameroceras and later eurypterids such as Jaekelopterus during the Ordovician and Silurian periods. The first vertebrate carnivores appeared after the evolution of jawed fish , especially armored placoderms such as the massive Dunkleosteus . The dominance of placoderms in the Devonian ocean forced other fish to venture into other niches, and one clade of bony fish ,

750-468: The percentage of meat in their diet. The diet of a hypercarnivore consists of more than 70% meat, that of a mesocarnivore 30–70%, and that of a hypocarnivore less than 30%, with the balance consisting of non-animal foods, such as fruits , other plant material, or fungi . Omnivores also consume both animal and non-animal food, and apart from their more general definition, there is no clearly defined ratio of plant vs. animal material that distinguishes

780-555: The physical characteristics to bring down prey; in addition, most hunting carnivores will scavenge when the opportunity arises. Carnivores have comparatively short digestive systems, as they are not required to break down the tough cellulose found in plants. Many hunting animals have evolved eyes facing forward, enabling depth perception. This is almost universal among mammalian predators, while most reptile and amphibian predators have eyes facing sideways. Predation (the eating of one living organism by another for nutrition ) predates

810-499: The plants flourish. This gives them a decisive advantage over other plants, whereas in nutrient-rich soils they tend to be out-competed by plants adapted to aggressive growth where nutrient supplies are not the major constraints. Technically these plants are not strictly insectivorous, as they consume any animal that they can secure and consume; the distinction is trivial, however, because not many primarily insectivorous organisms exclusively consume insects. Most of those that do have such

840-675: The region of 10  kg (one billion tons) with an estimated population of 10 (one billion billion, or quintillion ) organisms. Many creatures depend on insects as their primary diet, and many that do not (and are thus not technically insectivores) nevertheless use insects as a protein supplement, particularly when they are breeding. Examples of insectivores include different kinds of species of carp , opossum , frogs , lizards (e.g. chameleons , geckos ), nightingales , swallows , echidnas , numbats , anteaters , armadillos , aardvarks , pangolins , aardwolfs , bats , and spiders . Even large mammals are recorded as eating insects;

870-402: The rise of commonly recognized carnivores by hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of years. It began with single-celled organisms that phagocytozed and digested other cells, and later evolved into multicellular organisms with specialized cells that were dedicated to breaking down other organisms. Incomplete digestion of the prey organisms, some of which survived inside the predators in

900-663: The rise of multicellular organisms at about 2 bya, and the rise of motile predators (around 600 Mya – 2 bya, probably around 1 bya) have all been attributed to early predatory behavior, and many very early remains show evidence of boreholes or other markings attributed to small predator species. The sudden disappearance of the precambrian Ediacaran biota at the end-Ediacaran extinction , who were mostly bottom-dwelling filter feeders and grazers , has been hypothetized to be partly caused by increased predation by newer animals with hardened skeleton and mouthparts. The degradation of seafloor microbial mats due to

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