order of placental mammals From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The order Carnivora is a group of mammals. The group is divided into the "cat-like" Feliformia and the "dog-like" Caniformia.
Carnivora Temporal range: Palaeocene to Recent | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Scientific classification ![]() | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Clade: | Carnivoramorpha |
Clade: | Carnivoraformes |
Order: | Carnivora Bowdich, 1821 |
Families | |
|
Animals of the order Carnivora are carnivores, a term which applies to all flesh-eaters. If one needs to refer to members of the order, then carnivorans is used. Many species of Carnivora are actually omnivores, and a few of them, like the giant panda, eat mostly plants.
The order includes aquatic relatives in the superfamily Pinnipedia, the walruses and seals.
Mammalian carnivores have a particular arrangement of their back teeth. It is to slice the meat of their prey. As the photo shows, two of the back teeth work as meat slicers. If they change their way of life (various aquatic mammals) this feature gets changed or even lost (selected against).[1]
The Carnivores are linked with the Miacids and Viverravids in an unranked clade, the Carnivoramorpha:
The carnivores known as †Creodonts have some relation to these groups, but are placed outside the Carnivoramorpha. The †Mesonychids are another extinct group of early carnivores, which are also not in the Carnivoramorpha.
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.