Carnivore in the context of "Hyaenodon"

An omnivore (/ˈɒmnɪvɔːr/) is an animal that eats both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nutrients and energy of the sources absorbed. Often, they have the ability to incorporate food sources such as algae, fungi, and bacteria into their diet.

Omnivores come from diverse backgrounds that often independently evolved sophisticated consumption capabilities. For instance, dogs evolved from primarily carnivorous organisms (Carnivora) while pigs evolved from primarily herbivorous organisms (Artiodactyla). Despite this, physical characteristics such as tooth morphology may be reliable indicators of diet in mammals, with such morphological adaptation having been observed in bears.

The wolf (Canis lupus; pl.: wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus have been recognized, including the dog and dingo, though grey wolves, as popularly understood, include only naturally-occurring wild subspecies. The wolf is the largest wild extant member of the family Canidae, and is further distinguished from other Canis species by its less pointed ears and muzzle, as well as a shorter torso and a longer tail. The wolf is nonetheless related closely enough to smaller Canis species, such as the coyote and the golden jackal, to produce fertile hybrids with them. The wolf's fur is usually mottled white, brown, grey, and black, although subspecies in the arctic region may be nearly all white.

Of all members of the genus Canis, the wolf is most specialized for cooperative game hunting, as demonstrated by its physical adaptations to tackling large prey, its more social nature, and its highly advanced expressive behaviour, including individual or group howling. It travels in nuclear families, consisting of a mated pair accompanied by their offspring. Offspring may leave to form their own packs on the onset of sexual maturity and in response to competition for food within the pack. Wolves are also territorial, and fights over territory are among the principal causes of mortality. The wolf is mainly a carnivore and feeds on large wild hooved mammals as well as smaller animals, livestock, carrion, and garbage. Single wolves or mated pairs typically have higher success rates in hunting than do large packs. Pathogens and parasites, notably the rabies virus, may infect wolves.

Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the host) and parasitoidism (which always does, eventually). It is distinct from scavenging on dead prey, though many predators also scavenge; it overlaps with herbivory, as seed predators and destructive frugivores are predators.

Predation behaviour varies significantly depending on the organism. Many predators, especially carnivores, have evolved distinct hunting strategies. Pursuit predation involves the active search for and pursuit of prey, whilst ambush predators instead wait for prey to present an opportunity for capture, and often use stealth or aggressive mimicry. Other predators are opportunistic or omnivorous and only practice predation occasionally.

Oceanic dolphins or Delphinidae are a widely distributed family of dolphins that live in the sea. Close to forty extant species are recognised. They include several big species whose common names contain "whale" rather than "dolphin", such as the Globicephalinae (round-headed whales, which include the false killer whale and pilot whale). Delphinidae is a family within the superfamily Delphinoidea, which also includes the porpoises (Phocoenidae) and the Monodontidae (beluga whale and narwhal). River dolphins are relatives of the Delphinoidea.

Oceanic dolphins range in size from the 1.7-metre-long (5 ft 7 in) and 50-kilogram (110-pound) Maui's dolphin to the 9.4-metre (31 ft) and 10-metric-ton (11-short-ton) orca, the largest known dolphin. Several species exhibit sexual dimorphism; the males are larger than females. They have streamlined muscular bodies and two limbs that are modified into flippers. Though not quite as flexible as seals, some dolphins can travel at speeds 29 km/h (18 mph) for short distances. Most delphinids primarily eat fish, along with a smaller number of squid and small crustaceans, but some species specialise in eating squid, or, in the case of the orca, also eat marine mammals and birds. All, however, are purely carnivorous. They typically have between 100 and 200 teeth, although a few species have considerably fewer. Delphinids travel in large pods, which may number a thousand individuals in some species. Each pod forages over a range of tens to hundreds of square kilometres. Some pods have a loose social structure, with individuals frequently joining or leaving, but others seem to be more permanent, perhaps dominated by a male and a harem of females. Individuals communicate by sound, producing low-frequency whistles, and also produce high-frequency broadband clicks of 80–220 kHz, which are primarily used for echolocation. Gestation lasts from 10 to 18 months, and results in the birth of a single calf. Some species are well adapted for diving to great depths. They have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin to keep warm in the cold water.

The trophic level of an organism is the position it occupies in a food web. Within a food web, a food chain is a succession of organisms that eat other organisms and may, in turn, be eaten themselves. The trophic level of an organism is the number of steps it is from the start of the chain. A food web starts at trophic level 1 with primary producers such as plants, can move to herbivores at level 2, carnivores at level 3 or higher, and typically finish with apex predators at level 4 or 5. The path along the chain can form either a one-way flow or a part of a wider food "web". Ecological communities with higher biodiversity form more complex trophic paths.

The word trophic derives from the Greek τροφή (trophē) referring to food or nourishment.

A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet. These more broadly also encompass animals that eat non-vascular autotrophs such as mosses, algae and lichens, but do not include those feeding on decomposed plant matters (i.e. detritivores) or macrofungi (i.e. fungivores).

As a result of their plant-based diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouth structures (jaws or mouthparts) well adapted to mechanically break down plant materials, and their digestive systems have special enzymes (e.g. amylase and cellulase) to digest polysaccharides. Grazing herbivores such as horses and cattles have wide flat-crowned teeth that are better adapted for grinding grass, tree bark and other tougher lignin-containing materials, and many of them evolved rumination or cecotropic behaviors to better extract nutrients from plants. A large percentage of herbivores also have mutualistic gut flora made up of bacteria and protozoans that help to degrade the cellulose in plants, whose heavily cross-linking polymer structure makes it far more difficult to digest than the protein- and fat-rich animal tissues that carnivores eat.

Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin that is an essential nutrient. The term "vitamin A" encompasses a group of chemically related organic compounds that includes retinol, retinyl esters, and several provitamin (precursor) carotenoids, most notably β-carotene (beta-carotene). Vitamin A has multiple functions: growth during embryo development, maintaining the immune system, and healthy vision. For aiding vision specifically, it combines with the protein opsin to form rhodopsin, the light-absorbing molecule necessary for both low-light (scotopic vision) and color vision.

Vitamin A occurs as two principal forms in foods: A) retinoids, found in animal-sourced foods, either as retinol or bound to a fatty acid to become a retinyl ester, and B) the carotenoids α-carotene (alpha-carotene), β-carotene, γ-carotene (gamma-carotene), and the xanthophyll beta-cryptoxanthin (all of which contain β-ionone rings) that function as provitamin A in herbivore and omnivore animals which possess the enzymes that cleave and convert provitamin carotenoids to retinol. Some carnivore species lack this enzyme. The other carotenoids do not have retinoid activity.

The cat (Felis catus), also referred to as the domestic cat, is a small carnivorous mammal. It is an obligate carnivore, requiring a predominantly meat-based diet. Its retractable claws are adapted to killing small prey species such as mice and rats. It has a strong, flexible body, quick reflexes, and sharp teeth, and its night vision and sense of smell are well developed. It is a social species, but a solitary hunter and a crepuscular predator.Cat communication includes meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling, grunting, and body language. It can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by small mammals. It secretes and perceives pheromones. Cat intelligence is evident in its ability to adapt, learn through observation, and solve problems. Female domestic cats can have kittens from spring to late autumn in temperate zones and throughout the year in equatorial regions, with litter sizes often ranging from two to five kittens.

The domestic cat is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the domestication of the cat started in the Near East around 7500 BCE. Today, the domestic cat occurs across the globe and is valued by humans for companionship and its ability to kill vermin. It is commonly kept as a pet, working cat, and pedigreed cat shown at cat fancy events. Out of the estimated 600 million domestic cats worldwide, 400 million reside in Asia, including 58 million in China. The United States leads in cat ownership with 73.8 million cats, followed by the United Kingdom with approximately 10.9 million cats. It also ranges freely as a feral cat, avoiding human contact. Pet abandonment contributes to increasing of the global feral cat population, which has driven the decline of bird, mammal, and reptile species. Population control includes spaying and neutering.

A tooth (pl.: teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, tearing food, for defensive purposes, to intimidate other animals often including their own, or to carry prey or their young. The roots of teeth are covered by gums. Teeth are not made of bone, but rather of multiple tissues of varying density and hardness that originate from the outermost embryonic germ layer, the ectoderm.

The general structure of teeth is similar across the vertebrates, although there is considerable variation in their form and position. The teeth of mammals have deep roots, and this pattern is also found in some fish, and in crocodilians. In most teleost fish, however, the teeth are attached to the outer surface of the bone, while in lizards they are attached to the inner surface of the jaw by one side. In cartilaginous fish, such as sharks, the teeth are attached by tough ligaments to the hoops of cartilage that form the jaw.

Murex is a genus of medium to large sized predatory tropical sea snails. These are carnivorous marine gastropod molluscs in the family Muricidae, commonly called "murexes" or "rock snails".

The common name murex is still used for many species in the family Muricidae which were originally given the Latin generic name Murex, but have more recently been regrouped into newer genera. Murex was used in antiquity to describe spiny sea snails, especially those associated with the production of purple dye. Murex is one of the oldest classical seashell names still used by the scientific community.

The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a large bear native to the Arctic and nearby areas. It is closely related to the brown bear, and the two species can interbreed. The polar bear is the largest extant species of bear and land carnivore by body mass, with adult males weighing 300–800 kg (660–1,760 lb). The species is sexually dimorphic, as adult females are much smaller. The polar bear is white- or yellowish-furred with black skin and a thick layer of fat. It is more slender than the brown bear, with a narrower skull, longer neck and lower shoulder hump. Its teeth are sharper and more adapted to cutting meat. The paws are large and allow the bear to walk on ice and paddle in the water.

Polar bears are both terrestrial and pagophilic (ice-living) and are considered marine mammals because of their dependence on marine ecosystems. They prefer the annual sea ice but live on land when the ice melts in the summer. They are mostly carnivorous and specialized for preying on seals, particularly ringed seals. Such prey is typically taken by ambush; the bear may stalk its prey on the ice or in the water, but also will stay at a breathing hole or ice edge to wait for prey to swim by. The bear primarily feeds on the seal's energy-rich blubber. Other prey include walruses, beluga whales and some terrestrial animals. Polar bears are usually solitary but can be found in groups when on land. During the breeding season, male bears guard females and defend them from rivals. Mothers give birth to cubs in maternity dens during the winter. Young stay with their mother for up to two and a half years.

Eating (also known as consuming) is the ingestion of food. In biology, this is typically done to provide a heterotrophic organism with energy and nutrients and to allow for growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive – carnivores eat other animals, herbivores eat plants, omnivores consume a mixture of both plant and animal matter, and detritivores eat detritus. Fungi digest organic matter outside their bodies as opposed to animals that digest their food inside their bodies.

For humans, eating is more complex, but is typically an activity of daily living. Physicians and dieticians consider a healthful diet essential for maintaining peak physical condition. Some individuals may limit their amount of nutritional intake. This may be a result of a lifestyle choice: as part of a diet or as religious fasting. Limited consumption may be due to hunger or famine. Overconsumption of calories may lead to obesity and the reasons behind it are myriad, however, its prevalence has led some to declare an "obesity epidemic".

Giganotosaurus (/ˌɡɪɡəˌnoʊtəˈsɔːrəs/ GIG-ə-NOH-tə-SOR-əs) is a genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now Argentina, during the early Cenomanian age of the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 99.6 to 95 million years ago. The holotype specimen was discovered in the Candeleros Formation of Patagonia in 1993 and is almost 70% complete. The animal was named Giganotosaurus carolinii in 1995; the genus name translates to "giant southern lizard", and the specific name honors the discoverer, Ruben Carolini. A dentary bone, a tooth, and some tracks, discovered before the holotype, were later assigned to this animal. The genus attracted much interest and became part of a scientific debate about the maximum sizes of theropod dinosaurs.

Giganotosaurus was one of the largest known terrestrial carnivores, but the exact size has been hard to determine due to the incompleteness of the remains found so far. Estimates for the most complete specimen range from a length of 12 to 13 m (39 to 43 ft), a skull 1.53 to 1.80 m (5.0 to 5.9 ft) in length, and a weight of 4.2 to 13.8 t (4.6 to 15.2 short tons). The dentary bone that belonged to a supposedly larger individual has been used to extrapolate a length of 13.2 m (43 ft). Some researchers have found the animal to be larger than Tyrannosaurus, which has historically been considered the largest theropod, while others have found them to be roughly equal in size and the largest size estimates for Giganotosaurus exaggerated. The skull was low, with rugose (rough and wrinkled) nasal bones and a ridge-like crest on the lacrimal bone in front of the eye. The front of the lower jaw was flattened and had a downward-projecting process (or "chin") at the tip. The teeth were compressed sideways and had serrations. The neck was strong and the pectoral girdle proportionally small.

Carrion (from Latin caro 'meat'), also known as a carcass, is the decaying flesh of dead animals. Carrion may be of natural or anthropic origin (e.g. wildlife, human remains, livestock), and enters the food chain via different routes (e.g. animals dying of disease or malnutrition, predators and hunters discarding parts of their prey, collisions with automobiles).

Carrion is an important food source for large carnivores and omnivores in most ecosystems. Examples of carrion-eating animals include vultures, eagles, hyenas, Virginia opossum, Tasmanian devils, and coyotes. Many invertebrates, for example carrion beetles, burying beetles, blow-fly maggots, and flesh-fly maggots, also eat carrion. All of these animals, together with microbial decomposers, help to recycle nitrogen and carbon in animal remains.