Importance of Carnivores

Serena Cuoghi
Title of Professor of Biology

In the perfect nature everything flows with spectacular harmony. There is no creature that lacks a vital importance for the maintenance of balance in each ecosystem, which is based not only on a constant energy dynamics, but also in the regulation of species populations, so that the resources that provide said energy are enough, therefore, carnivorous animals also have a transcendental ecological function, by preferring another cute one as a dish little animal.

Feeding of Carnivores

Among the eating habits of living beings, there are those who focus their diet on the primary intake of meat, which can come from any animal source, such as mammals, birds, fish, reptiles or amphibians, and even in any state, whether devouring a prey still alive, or taking advantage of the remains of a corpse down to the last bone, so that scavengers are also essentially carnivores.

Physical Characteristics of Carnivores

The development of a carnivorous diet has allowed very advantageous evolutionary contributions for this type of animals, this is due to the fact that they manage to obtain a greater load of energy than that provided by plants to herbivores, coupled with the high availability of easier assimilation amino acids, derived from animal proteins with respect to vegetables.

A more complex nutrition, therefore, also allows a higher physical development, because the very way of obtaining food requires the use of skills and abilities. skills, both physical and mental, beyond what an herbivore needs to simply gobble up a plant, which it even has to chase for food.

Since carnivorous animals have greater physical exhaustion and a high energy consumption to obtain their food, since hunting other animals is not an easy task in many Sometimes, they are usually diners with a great appetite that may well have a much broader menu in their diet than the herbivores themselves, hunting and preying on whatever comes their way. moment. This ability to adapt has also been an advantage in favor of balance in the dynamics between species, there is a kind of "common sense" that indicates to the carnivore which are the animals that it can turn into its prey.

Predation habits

There is an immense variety of mechanisms and skills developed by carnivorous animals to obtain their food. Depending on the type of prey it has had the most at its disposal, each carnivore has physically evolved to be a hunter. perfectly suited to overcoming the abilities of its prey, otherwise the hunting process would be too exhausting and fruitless.

This constant dynamic between the carnivore hunter and its elusive prey has led to the generation of selection processes for them based on to require the minimum possible consumption of energy by the predator, focusing its attention mainly on the search for the most easy to feed with, hence sick and older animals - therefore slower - are the first choice of every carnivore.

Carnivores in pest control

Carnivorous animals also represent a mechanism to control the proliferation of animal species that often become a problem for humans. human settlements, both in the countryside and in the city, especially due to the diseases of which they are vectors, an example of this are mice and rats.

Being transmitters of highly dangerous diseases ranging from leptospirosis to rabies, controlling the presence of these rodents among humans is more than necessary, demonstrating that for this there is no more efficient and natural mechanism than the developed by cats for their effective extermination, a service that the kittens gladly perform for us in exchange for some caresses and their deserved care.

Bibliographic references

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Salvat Library (1973). The evolution of the spices. Barcelona, ​​Spain. Salvat Editors.

Well f. (1996). Ecological importance of Carnivores. Carnivores, Evolution, Ecology and Conservation (Higher Council for Scientific Research Museum National Natural Sciences, Spanish Society for the Conservation and Study of Mammals, Spain, 1996). Pages, 171-182.

Hickman, C. et al. (1998) Integral Principles of Zoology. 11th Ed. Madrid, Spain. McGraw-Hill Interamericana.

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Foreman, D. (1998). The Importance of Keeping Carnivores in Wild Areas. Proceedings RMRS., (40), 38.