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Hypocarnivore
A hypocarnivore is an animal that consumes less than 30% meat for its diet, the majority of which consists of fungi, fruits, and other plant material. Examples of living hypocarnivores are the grizzly bear (''Ursus horribilis''), black bear (''Ursus americanus''), binturong (''Arctictis binturong''), kinkajou (''Potos flavus''), and humans (''Homo sapiens''). The evolutionary division of carnivory into three groups, including hypercarnivore and mesocarnivore, appears to have occurred about 40 million years ago (mya). The term hypocarnivory is used with increasing frequency in describing early Canidae evolution, and reliance upon that survival strategy has a documented history in North American Borophaginae during the Miocene (23.03 to 5.33 mya). Twenty-five species of hypocarnivore are documented as co-occurring on the North American continent 30 mya. A shift from hyper- to hypo- occurred at least three times among Oligocene and Miocene canids ''Oxetocyon'', ''Phlaocyon'', and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phlaocyon
''Phlaocyon'' (from Greek ''phlao'', "eat greedily" and ''cyon'', "dog") is an extinct genus of the Borophaginae subfamily of canids native to North America. It lives from the Early Oligocene to the Early Miocene epoch 33.3–16.3 Mya, existing for approximately . It is closely related to ''Cynarctoides''. Phylogeny When discovered in the 19th century and during the following decades, ''Phlaocyon'' was thought to be ancestral to raccoons because of shared convergent adaptations toward hypocarnivorous dentitions, but was the first to discover the canid nature of the middle ear region in ''P. leucosteus'' and ''Phlaocyon'' in now believed to be part of very diverse clade of hypocarnivorous canids, the Phlaocyonini, and only distantly related to raccoons. '' P. mariae'' and '' P. yatkolai'', both known from isolated teeth and fragmentary material, are the largest and most derived species, and both display a tendency away from the hypocarnivorous dentition of the genus and towa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Feeding Behaviours
Feeding is the process by which organisms, typically animals, obtain food. Terminology often uses either the suffixes -vore, -vory, or -vorous from Latin ''vorare'', meaning "to devour", or -phage, -phagy, or -phagous from Greek φαγεῖν (), meaning "to eat". Evolutionary history The evolution of feeding is varied with some feeding strategies evolving several times in independent lineages. In terrestrial vertebrates, the earliest forms were large amphibious piscivores 400 million years ago. While amphibians continued to feed on fish and later insects, reptiles began exploring two new food types, other tetrapods (carnivory), and later, plants (herbivory). Carnivory was a natural transition from insectivory for medium and large tetrapods, requiring minimal adaptation (in contrast, a complex set of adaptations was necessary for feeding on highly fibrous plant materials). Evolutionary adaptations The specialization of organisms towards specific food sources is one of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grizzly Bear
The grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), also known as the North American brown bear or simply grizzly, is a population or subspecies of the brown bear inhabiting North America. In addition to the mainland grizzly (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), other morphological forms of brown bear in North America are sometimes identified as grizzly bears. These include three living populations—the Kodiak bear (''U. a. middendorffi''), the Kamchatka bear (''U. a. beringianus''), and the peninsular grizzly (''U. a. gyas'')—as well as the extinct California grizzly (''U. a. californicus''†), Mexican grizzly (formerly ''U. a. nelsoni''†), and Ungava-Labrador grizzly (formerly ''U. a. ungavaesis''†). On average, grizzly bears near the coast tend to be larger while inland grizzlies tend to be smaller. The Ussuri brown bear (''U. a. lasiotus''), inhabiting Russia, Northern China, Japan, and Korea, is sometimes referred to as the "black grizzly", although it is no more closely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hypercarnivore
A hypercarnivore is an animal which has a diet that is more than 70% meat, either via active predation or by scavenging. The remaining non-meat diet may consist of non-animal foods such as fungi, fruits or other plant material. Some extant examples of hypercarnivorous animals include crocodilians, owls, shrikes, eagles, vultures, felids, most wild canids, dolphins, snakes, spiders, scorpions, mantises, marlins, groupers, piranhas and most sharks. Every species in the family Felidae, including the domesticated cat, is a hypercarnivore in its natural state. Additionally, this term is also used in paleobiology to describe taxa of animals which have an increased slicing component of their dentition relative to the grinding component. Hypercarnivores need not be apex predators. For example, salmon are exclusively carnivorous, yet they are prey at all stages of life for a variety of organisms. Many prehistoric mammals of the clade Carnivoramorpha (Carnivora and Miacoidea without C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesocarnivore
A mesocarnivore is an animal whose diet consists of 50–70% meat with the balance consisting of non-vertebrate foods which may include insects, fungi, fruits, other plant material and any food that is available to them. Mesocarnivores are from a large family group of mammalian carnivores and vary from small to medium sized, which are less than fifteen kilograms. Mesocarnivores are seen today among the Canidae (coyotes, foxes), Viverridae (civets), Mustelidae (martens, tayra), Procyonidae (ringtail, raccoon), Mephitidae (skunks), and Herpestidae (some mongooses). The red fox is also the most common of the mesocarnivores in Europe and has a high population density in the areas they reside. In North America some mesocarnivores, such as otters, lynx, or marten, are in danger of being over hunted for their pelts.Ray, Justina C. Mesocarnivores of Northeastern North America: Status and Conservation Issues. WCS Working Papers No. 15, June 2000. Available for download from http://www.wc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxetocyon
''Oxetocyon'' ("beginning dog") is an extinct monospecific genus of the Borophaginae subfamily of canids native to North America. It lived during the Early Oligocene epoch, existing for approximately . Fossils have been found in Nebraska and South Dakota. Fossils of ''Oxetocyon'' are rare and, as a result, the genus is poorly known, and only the teeth, dentaries, and a fragmentary skull have been reported. The teeth of ''Oxetocyon'' indicate a hypocarnivorous diet, as is found in the living raccoon dog, and suggest a potential relationship to the unusual borophagine ''Otarocyon ''Otarocyon'' ("large eared dog") is an extinct genus of the Borophaginae subfamily of canids native to North America. It lived during the Oligocene epoch, about 34—30 Ma (million years ago). Fossils have been found only in Montana, Wyoming ...''. ''Oxetocyon'' is distinguished from ''Otarocyon'' by its own set of dental specializations for an omnivorous diet, particularly by the presence of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oligocene
The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the epoch are slightly uncertain. The name Oligocene was coined in 1854 by the German paleontologist Heinrich Ernst Beyrich from his studies of marine beds in Belgium and Germany. The name comes from the Ancient Greek (''olígos'', "few") and (''kainós'', "new"), and refers to the sparsity of extant forms of molluscs. The Oligocene is preceded by the Eocene Epoch and is followed by the Miocene Epoch. The Oligocene is the third and final epoch of the Paleogene Period. The Oligocene is often considered an important time of transition, a link between the archaic world of the tropical Eocene and the more modern ecosystems of the Miocene. Major changes during the Oligocene included a global expansion o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vertebrate
Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with currently about 69,963 species described. Vertebrates comprise such groups as the following: * jawless fish, which include hagfish and lampreys * jawed vertebrates, which include: ** cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays, and ratfish) ** bony vertebrates, which include: *** ray-fins (the majority of living bony fish) *** lobe-fins, which include: **** coelacanths and lungfish **** tetrapods (limbed vertebrates) Extant vertebrates range in size from the frog species ''Paedophryne amauensis'', at as little as , to the blue whale, at up to . Vertebrates make up less than five percent of all described animal species; the rest are invertebrates, which lack vertebral columns. The vertebrates traditionally include the hagfish, which do no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prohesperocyon
''Prohesperocyon'' ("before ''Hesperocyon''") is an extinct genus of the first canid endemic to North America appearing during the Late Eocene around 36.6 mya ( AEO). Fossil distribution ''Prohesperocyon wilsoni'' was unearthed at the Airstrip (TMM 40504) site, Presidio County, Texas dating between 36.6 and 36.5 million years ago. revised on 2002-06-03, John Alroy
John Alroy is a paleobiologist born in New York in 1966 and now residing in Sydney, Australia.
Area of expertise
Alroy specializes in diversity curves, speciation, and extinction of North American fossil mammals and Phanerozoic mar ...
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Carnassial
Carnassials are paired upper and lower teeth modified in such a way as to allow enlarged and often self-sharpening edges to pass by each other in a shearing manner. This adaptation is found in carnivorans, where the carnassials are the modified fourth upper premolar and the first lower molar, however this may vary in family. These teeth are also referred to as sectorial teeth. Taxonomy The name carnivoran is applied to a member of the order Carnivora. Carnivorans possess a common arrangement of teeth called carnassials, in which the first lower molar and the last upper premolar possess blade-like enamel crowns that act similar to a pair of shears for cutting meat. This dental arrangement has been modified by adaptation over the past 60 million years for diets composed of meat, for crushing vegetation, or for the loss of the carnassial function altogether as in seals, sea lions, and walruses. Carnassial dentition Carnassial teeth are modified molars (and in the case of carn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58See the 2014 version of the ICS geologic time scale million years ago. It is the second and most recent epoch of the Neogene Period in the . The Pliocene follows the Epoch and is followed by the Epoch. Prior to the 2009 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
