What Is A Carnivore? What Do Carnivores Eat?
A carnivore is an animal that survives mostly by eating other animals. A carnivorous animal that hunts and kills other animals in order to eat them is called a predator.
Some predators are further categorized based on the kinds of creatures they hunt and eat. For instance, an insect-catching animal is said to be insectivorous, while one that chases fish is piscivorous. A predator at the very top of the food chain is known as an apex predator. Eagles and other winged and feathered predators are called raptors.
A carnivorous animal that mainly eats animals that have have died of natural causes, or that have been killed by other animals, is called a scavenger.
In addition, some carnivorous creatures such as mosquitoes, lice, fleas, ticks, and vampires survive not by consuming the flesh of other animals, but by eating their blood. These carnivores are called ectoparasites.
