Meatatarian vs. Carnivore

Main Difference

The main difference between Meatatarian and Carnivore is that the Meatatarian is a animal flesh eaten as food and Carnivore is a organism that eats mostly or exclusively animal tissue.

• Meatatarian

  Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted and killed animals for meat since prehistoric times. The advent of civilization allowed the domestication of animals such as chickens, sheep, rabbits, pigs and cattle. This eventually led to their use in meat production on an industrial scale with the aid of slaughterhouses.

  Meat is mainly composed of water, protein, and fat. It is edible raw, but is normally eaten after it has been cooked and seasoned or processed in a variety of ways. Unprocessed meat will spoil or rot within hours or days as a result of infection with and decomposition by bacteria and fungi.

  Meat is important in economy and culture, even though its mass production and consumption has been determined to pose risks for human health and the environment. Many religions have rules about which meat may or may not be eaten, and vegetarian people abstain from eating meat because of concerns about the ethics of eating meat or about the effects of meat production or consumption.

• Carnivore

  A carnivore , meaning “meat eater” (Latin, caro, genitive carnis, meaning “meat” or “flesh” and vorare meaning “to devour”), is an organism that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of animal tissue, whether through predation or scavenging. Animals that depend solely on animal flesh for their nutrient requirements are called obligate carnivores while those that also consume non-animal food are called facultative carnivores. Omnivores also consume both animal and non-animal food, and, apart from the more general definition, there is no clearly defined ratio of plant to animal material that would distinguish a facultative carnivore from an omnivore. A carnivore that sits at the top of the food chain is termed an apex predator.

  The word “carnivore” also may refer to the mammalian order Carnivora, but this is somewhat misleading. While many Carnivora meet the definition of being meat eaters, not all do, and even fewer are true obligate carnivores (see below). For example, most species of bears are actually omnivorous, except for the giant panda, which is almost exclusively herbivorous, and the exclusively meat-eating polar bear, which lives in the Arctic, where few plants grow. In addition, there are plenty of carnivorous species that are not members of Carnivora.

  Outside the animal kingdom, there are several genera containing carnivorous plants and several phyla containing carnivorous fungi. The former are predominantly insectivores, while the latter prey mostly on microscopic invertebrates, such as nematodes, amoebae and springtails.

  Carnivores are sometimes characterized by the type of prey that they consume. For example, animals that eat insects and similar invertebrates primarily or exclusively are called insectivores, while those that eat fish primarily or exclusively are called piscivores. The first tetrapods, or land-dwelling vertebrates, were piscivorous amphibians known as labyrinthodonts. They gave rise to insectivorous vertebrates and, later, to predators of other tetrapods.Carnivores may alternatively be classified according to the percentage of meat in their diet. The diet of a hypercarnivore consists of more than 70% meat, that of a mesocarnivore 50–70%, and that of a hypocarnivore less than 30%, with the balance consisting of non-animal foods such as fruits, other plant material, or fungi.