Carnivoran in the context of "Stink badger"

The anal glands or anal sacs are small glands near the anus in many mammals. They are situated in between the external anal sphincter muscle and internal anal sphincter muscle. In non-human mammals, the secretions of the anal glands contain mostly volatile organic compounds with a strong odor, and they are thus functionally involved in communication. Depending upon the species, they may be involved in territory marking, individual identification, and sexual signalling, as well as defense (such as in skunks). Their function in humans is unclear.

Sebaceous glands within the lining secrete a liquid that is used for identification of members within a species. These sacs are found in many species of carnivorans, including wolves, bears, sea otters and kinkajous.

Live food is living animals used as food for feeding other carnivorous or omnivorous animals kept in captivity; in other words, small preys that are artificially presented to larger predators kept as exotic pets, livestocks, or display animals in zoo or aquaria. The idea behind using live food is to provide lively feeds that stimulate the proactive hunting instinct in the captive animals, thus retaining their "wildness" state that are often lost in prolonged captivity.

Live food is used to feed a variety of captive animals, typically those are naturally insectivorous, piscivorous or vermivorous, such as spiders, ornamental fish, songbirds and landfowls, small frogs and lizards. Those that are fed larger, tougher and more mobile live prey such as crustaceans, bivalves and rodents are typically hypercarnivorous predators such as mantis shrimps, octopuses, predatory fish, bullfrogs, large reptiles (e.g. crocodiles and alligators, snakes, large varanids such as Komodo dragon and monitor lizards, and snapping turtles), predatory birds and various carnivoran mammals such as great cats, canines and mustelids. Occasionally mesocarnivorous/hypocarnivorous animals such as bears and foxes, who are more generalist and less dietarily dependent on fresh meat, are also fed live food. For instance, pet skunks, who are omnivorous, can technically be fed a limited amount of live food, although this is not known to be a common practice.

Eupleridae is a family of carnivorans endemic to Madagascar and comprising 10 known living species in seven genera, commonly known as euplerids or Malagasy carnivorans. The best known species is the fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox), in the subfamily Euplerinae. All species of Euplerinae were formerly classified as viverrids, while all species in the subfamily Galidiinae were classified as mongooses.

Recent molecular studies indicate that the 10 living species of Madagascar carnivorans evolved from one ancestor that is thought to have rafted over from mainland Africa 18–24 million years ago. This makes Malagasy carnivorans a clade. They are closely allied with the true herpestid mongooses, their closest living relatives. The fossa and the Malagasy civet (Fossa fossana) are each evolutionarily quite distinct from each other and from the rest of the clade.