A hypercarnivore is an animal that has a diet that is more than 70% meat, either via active predation or by scavenging. The remaining non-meat diet may consist of non-animal foods such as fungi, fruits or other plant material. Some extant examples of hypercarnivorous animals include crocodilians, owls, shrikes, eagles, vultures, felids, some wild canids, polar bear, odontocetid cetaceans (toothed whales), snakes, spiders, scorpions, mantises, marlins, groupers, piranhas and most sharks. Every species in the family Felidae, including the domesticated cat, is a hypercarnivore in its natural state. Additionally, this term is also used in paleobiology to describe taxa of animals which have an increased slicing component of their dentition relative to the grinding component. In domestic settings, e.g. cats may have a diet derived from only plant and synthetic sources using modern processing methods. Feeding farmed animals such as alligators and crocodiles mostly or fully plant-based feed is sometimes done to save costs or as an environmentally friendly alternative. Hypercarnivores are not necessarily apex predators. For example, salmon are exclusively carnivorous, yet they are prey at all stages of life for a variety of organisms.
Many prehistoric mammals of the clade Carnivoramorpha (Carnivora and Miacoidea without Creodonta), along with the early order Creodonta, and some mammals of the even earlier order Cimolesta, were hypercarnivores. The earliest carnivorous mammal is considered to be Cimolestes, which existed during the Late Cretaceous and early Paleogene periods in North America about 66 million years ago. Many theropod dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex that existed during the late Cretaceous, although not mammals, were obligate carnivores.
