Carnivore

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The carnivores (Carnivora) are an order of placental mammals that includes about 260 living species.

The word «Carnivora», a Latin expression that is used as a scientific name for the order of the so-called «carnivores» in the zoological classification system (taxonomy), refers to mammals that, in that classification system, are adapted for a carnivorous diet.

Description

The order Carnivora, belonging to the clade Ferae, is the order of mammals with the greatest diversity in size among its members, ranging from the small common weasel (Mustela nivalis), weighing 25 g and 11 cm, to the polar bear (Ursus maritimus), which can weigh up to 1000 kg, and the southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina), whose adult males weigh up to 5000 kg and are 6.90 m long.

Carnivores displaced the oldest order of mammals with a carnivorous diet called Creodonta (Who in turn had previously displaced Mesonychia); and they would end up occupying their ecological niches, which contributed to the extinction of the creodonts.

Miacids, a family of mammals from the Paleocene and Eocene period between 65 and 33 million years ago, are considered basal members of the current order Carnivora.

They are considered members of that category because they are understood to belong to an evolutionary line of animals adapted to the ingestion mainly of meat, whether or not the specific species has meat as its main food.

Use of the term carnivore

Regarding the term Carnivores, neither the meaning of the Latin word «Carnivora» nor that of the Spanish «carnivoro» used in zoological systematics should be confused with that of the Spanish word «carnivoro» in its ordinary use, in which it is It refers to any animal that eats meat, whether it is a mammal or not, and whether its evolutionary line is adapted to the consumption of meat as its main food or not.

Features

Image of a brown bear, Ursus arctosshowing the pointed teeth and the characteristic claws of carnivores.

Carnivores are mostly terrestrial, most have sharp claws and at least four fingers on each limb and highly developed canines, molars and premolars usually have sharp edges. Carnivores have six incisors and two canines in each jaw. The only exceptions are the sea otter (Enhydra lutris), which has four incisors in the jaw, and the sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), which has four incisors in the jaw..