Carnivore and Herbivore Comparison

Teeth:The teeth of a carnivore are discretely spaced so as not to trap stringy debris. The incisors are short, pointed and prong-like and are used for grasping and shredding. The canines are greatly elongated and dagger-like for stabbing, tearing and killing prey. The molars (carnassials) are flattened and triangular with jagged edges such that they function like serrated-edged blades. Because of the hinge-type joint, when a carnivore closes its jaw, the cheek teeth come together in a back-to-front fashion giving a smooth cutting motion like the blades on a pair of shears.These are tools that are useful for the task of piercing into flesh

Jaws:. carnivore's jaws move up and down with minimal sideways motion. The jaw joint is a simple hinge joint lying in the same plane as the teeth. The "angle" of the mandible (lower jaw) in carnivores is small. This is because the muscles (masseter and pterygoids) that attach there are of minor importance in these animals. The lower jaw of carnivores cannot move forward, and has very limited side-to-side motion. These are tools that are useful for the tasks of shearing, ripping and tearing flesh and swallowing it whole.


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Digestion: A carnivore or omnivore's saliva does not contain digestive enzymes. Carnivores have a simple (single-chambered) stomach. The stomach volume of a carnivore represents 60-70% of the total capacity of the digestive system. Since most carnivores average a kill only about once a week, a large stomach volume is advantageous because it allows the animals to quickly gorge themselves when eating, taking in as much meat as possible at one time which can then be digested later while resting. A carnivore's stomach also secretes powerful digestive enzymes with about 10 times the amount of hydrochloric acid than a human or herbivore. The pH is less than or equal to "1" with food in the stomach, for a carnivore or omnivore. E. Coli bacteria, salmonella, campylobacter, trichina worms [parasites] or other pathogens would not survive in the stomach of a lion or other carnivore due to such high stomach acidity.

A carnivore's small intestine is three to six times the length of its trunk. This is a tool designed for rapid elimination of food that rots quickly. A carnivore's large intestine is relatively short and simple, like a pipe. This passage is also relatively smooth and runs fairly straight so that fatty wastes high in cholesterol can easily slide out before they start to putrefy.

Liver: Animal flesh requires vast amounts of uric acid to process. Uric acid needs to be released into the system in amounts necessary to break proteins down into amino acids. A carnivore's liver has the capacity to eliminate ten times as much uric acid as the liver of man or other plant eater.

Top image comes from The Wild Animal Sanctuary, a nonprofit organization devoted to To prevent and alleviate cruelty to large carnivores which are abandoned or that are subject to deprivation or neglect by providing care for such animals in as natural a setting as possible.

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Teeth: The dentition of herbivores is quite varied depending on the kind of vegetation a particular species is adapted to eat. Many herbivore's incisors are not pointed, but flat edged. The molars, in general, are squared and flattened on top to provide a grinding surface. The molars cannot vertically slide past one another in a shearing/slicing motion, but they do horizontally slide across one another to crush and grind. These are useful tools for biting, crushing and grinding.

Jaws: Herbivore's jaws, as well as the jaws of human beings cannot shear. The angle of the mandible has expanded to provide a broad area of attachment for the well-developed masseter and pterygoid muscles (these are the major muscles of chewing in plant-eating animals). The masseter and pterygoid muscles hold the mandible in a sling-like arrangement and swing the jaw from side-to-side. Accordingly, the lower jaw of plant-eating mammals has a pronounced sideways motion when eating. This lateral movement is necessary for the grinding motion of chewing.

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Digestion: An herbivore's saliva (as well as man's) is alkaline, containing carbohydrate digestive enzymes. Because plant foods are difficult to break down due to lots of indigestible fiber, herbivores have significantly longer and in some cases, more elaborate guts than carnivores. For herbivores as well as humans, The stomach volume represents about 21-27% of the total volume of the human GI tract. the pH of the stomach ranges from 4 to 5 with food in the stomach.

Man's, as well as other herbivore's small intestines are 10 to 12 times the length of their body, and winds itself back and forth in random directions. This is a tool designed for keeping food in it for long enough periods of time so that all the valuable nutrients and minerals can be extracted from it before it enters the large intestine. Herbivores large intestines, or colons, are puckered and pouched, and run in three directions (ascending, traversing and descending), designed to hold wastes that originally were foods high in water content. This is so that the fluids can be extracted from these wastes.

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