Talk:Carnivora

Grrrr!

At the risk of sounding like a humourless git, am I the only person here who thinks the lion picture on this page is excessively silly? Just wondering. The Singing Badger 20:32, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It was changed recently. In my opinion the "grrrrrr!" balloon is a bit out of style on a scientific page. Seems like someone's joke in a wrong place. Paul Pogonyshev 23:30, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The lion pic was vandalised by some joker. I have now put a completely different photo there. — Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 23:11, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Reorder ImageMap of Carnivoran Families

Hello,

I've noticed that the focal image "Image Map" for the Carnivora page has a bear for the top of the right column and then a wolf below that. With the two major suborders being "Feliformia" and "Caniformia", it seems a bit silly to have an Ursid on top and not a Canid to match!

I believe swapping the top two rows of the right column would be infinitely more intuitive to viewers, fostering greater understanding of these two suborders and the parallels in their evolution, etc. This can be invaluable to learners seeking to understand the relationships between all of these animal families, especially those that are often confused!

That being said, I have no idea how to actually make that change, as I have generally only performed text editing on Wikipedia.

If someone could assist with making this change, I believe it would greatly improve the educational strength of this page.

Cheers! ERLemur (talk) 13:58, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Possible mistake in map

Although a subspecies of dog/wolf the dingo, I believe, is considered a wild animal whose natural range is most of Australia. However this is not apparent on the map, might lead to misunderstanding that Australia does have exant carnivora species. Suggest editing to better show this. 213.37.166.13 (talk) 15:10, 6 July 2025 (UTC)

A question

Where can I find a discussion of the logic behind the name "carnivora" ?

Specifically, I’m wondering whether this is mainly a historic name, kept even though we now know that at least some species in this order aren’t really carnivores?

I got this question from reading the Kinkajou article, which is said to be "mostly frugivorous" while in the scientific classification it’s in the Carnivora order. Geke (talk) 11:09, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Can't think of anything specifically discussing it. Perhaps the best way of thinking about it is that the Carnivora are a group of mainly carnivorous mammals which evolved from a carnivorous common ancestor, even if some like the panda are now completely vegetarian. The ancestral state is often the basis for a taxon name.  —  Jts1882 | talk  11:58, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Australia

The map shows no carnivora in Australia, but the dingo article states that dingoes are canids and has a distribution map of dingoes within Australia. Canids are carnivora according to this carnivora article. So, the map needs to be changed. Kdammers (talk) 04:00, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

There are two possible reasons for omitting them. One, dingos are domesticated Dogs that have gone feral and the distributions of domesticated animals are not usually included in range maps (cats and dogs are also found in Australia). Two, they are not indigenous as they were introduced by humans around 3-4000 years ago. In this article, the range map is showing the natural distribution of carnivores before humans intervened.  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:22, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

The title of the map is "The extant distribution and density of Carnivora species." There are no qualifications in the title to indicate that a carnivore introduced 3K YA -- albeit by humans -- are disqualified. It's simply misleading. Kdammers (talk) 04:34, 10 October 2025 (UTC)