Carnivore - Prehistoric Carnivores

Prehistoric Carnivores

The first vertebrate carnivores were fish, and then amphibians that moved on to land. Early tetrapods were large amphibious piscivores. While amphibians continued to feed on fish and later insects, reptiles began exploring two new food types, 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).

Prehistoric mammals of the crown-clade Carnivoramorpha (Carnivora and Miacoidea without Creodonta), along with the early order Creodonta, and some mammals of the even earlier order Cimolesta, were true carnivores. The earliest carnivorous mammal is considered to be the Cimolestes that existed during the Late Cretaceous and Tertiary Periods in North America about 65 million years ago. Most species of Cimolestes were mouse to rat-sized, but the Late Cretaceous Cimolestes magnus reached the size of a marmot, making it one of the largest Mesozoic mammals known (20-60g). The cheek teeth combined the functions of piercing, shearing and grinding, and the molars of Palaeoryctes had extremely high and acute cusps that had little function other than piercing. The dentition of Cimolestes foreshadows the same cutting structures seen in all later carnivores. While the earlier smaller species were insectivores, the later marmot-sized Cimolestes magnus probably took larger prey and were definitely a carnivore to some degree. The cheek teeth of Hyracolestes ermineus (an ermine-like shrew - 40g) and Sarcodon pygmaeus ("pygmy flesh tooth" - 75g), were common in the latest Paleocene of Mongolia and China and occupied the small predator niche. The cheek teeth show the same characteristic notches that serve in today's carnivores to hold flesh in place to shear apart with cutting ridges.

The theropod dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex that existed during the Mesozoic Era were "obligate carnivores".