In the common, non-taxonomic sense of the term, carnivore is any
animal with a diet consisting wholly or mainly of animal matter,
whether it comes from animals living (predation) or dead
(scavenging). The term is in contrast to herbivore, which refers
to animals with a diet wholly or mainly of plant matter, and
omnivore, which refers to animals that consume both animal and
plant matter. In a similar sense, plants that capture and digest
insects are called carnivorous plants, while fungi that capture
microscopic animals are often called carnivorous fungi.
Carnivores also are known as meat eaters, with meat used in its
broadest sense as "animal tissues used for food," including
invertebrate tissue, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and so
forth. The term carnivore comes from the Latin words carō,
meaning "flesh," and vorāre, meaning "to devour," and thus means
"to devour flesh." While the term carnivores often is thought of
in terms of vertebrates, in a more general sense any animal,
including invertebrates, c