A carnivore is an animal which eats mostly meat. Predators commonly hunt and kill their own prey. Scavengers are carnivores which eat animals they did not kill themselves. Carnivores which eat mainly or only insects are called insectivores.
Here are some carnivores.
Mammals
- Domestic cats, big cats, hyenas
- Dogs, wolves, foxes, ferrets, seals and walruses
- Dolphins, whales and porpoises
- Birds
- All birds of prey, such as hawks, eagles, falcons and owls
- Reptiles
- All snakes, such as cobras, vipers, pythons and boas
- Fish and amphibians
- All frogs and toads
- Almost all sharks
Herbivores are animals that only eat plants.
Herbivores (such as deer, elephants, horses) have teeth that are adapted to grind vegetable tissue. Many animals that eat fruit and leaves sometimes eat other parts of plants, for example roots and seeds. Usually, such animals cannot digest meat. But some herbivorous animals will eat eggs and occasionally other animal protein.
Some eat mainly fruit. Browsers eat mostly leaves and sometimes small tree branches. Animals that eat mostly grass are grazing animals.
An omnivore is an animal whose species gets its energy and nutrients from a diet made up foods that include plants, animals, algae, fungi and bacteria.
Many omnivores change their eating habits during their life cycle. They are sometimes called “life-history omnivores”, because they are only omnivores if their whole life is considered.
Humans and apes are omnivores: they eat fruits, vegetables and some meat. Here are some omnivores.
- Mammals
- many pigs
- many bears
- some primates
- some rodents
- opossums
- Birds
- most seagulls
(CC BY-SA 3.0 Source – carnivore – herbivore – omnivore)