I'm trying to find information about animals' diets (mammals and birds). How do I distinguish an omnivore and a carnivore? Are there any tables with percentages? E.g., if an animals eats xx% meat, then it is a carnivore. I really need this kind of info because a lot of animals eat whatever it takes to survive and I can't find a reference that really helps me defining a feeding strategy of a certain animal...
If you have papers or books that would help me, please, let me know.
Olá Sergio
‘Carnivore’ is a vernacular term meaning ‘flesh eater’ but it is sometimes applied to members of the scientific order ‘Carnivora’. As your question suggests, the vernacular term is imprecise; I doubt that there is an agreed definition in terms of % of food materials. For your own purposes you could define limits and inform readers of them, but I doubt that sufficient detailed data exist on diet composition of different species for you to apply your limits widely.
Most of the Carnivora are carnivores, but some such as bears are omnivores and a few such as Pandas are almost exclusively herbivores. The vernacular becomes even more uncertain if terms such as ‘insectivore’ are included. I once wrote to an educational magazine that stated that bears were the largest carnivores. I said Sperm whales were larger carnivores, but the magazine retorted that they had checked with the British Museum – I presume the museum had answered in the scientific sense of Carnivora. This may be of interest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivora
I should add that I am an amateur; if a qualified scientist gives a different reply, you should ignore mine.
Cheers
Ian
Thanks, Ian. I know that within Carnivora there are a lot of different diets. But my question was about how to define, in a scientific job, what is an omnivore and a herbivore. I guess I'll have to rely on general handbooks or encyclopedias to find my answer. ;)
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Papers