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Use carnivorous in a sentence

Definition of carnivorous:

  • (adjective) predatory or flesh-eating.

Sentence Examples:

Gee, but those carnivorous animals are bad enough even if you give them nice boiled sirloin steak, and they fight enough over it, at any time, but when they began to chew and tear the meat, and get horseradish hot from the griddle, they didn't do a thing.

From any dictionary you may ascertain that an owl is a nocturnal, carnivorous bird, of a short, stout form, with downy feathers and a large head; and if that does not satisfy you, there is no lack of books which will furnish fuller and more precise descriptions.

A reverence for the bear appears to be common to all North American tribes, and is based not upon anything that the animal's body yields, but perhaps on the fact that it is the largest carnivorous mammal of the continent, the most difficult to kill and extremely keen in all its senses.

It is of a very restless disposition, and always carries its food to the most retired place to consume it, and is very cleanly in its habits; but it is exclusively carnivorous and destructive to poultry, employing great artifice in surprising chickens.

The voices of all carnivorous birds and beasts are harsh, and at times hideous; and probably, like that of the owl, which, from the width and capacity of its throat, is in some varieties very powerful, may be intended as an alarm and warning to the birds and animals on which they prey, to secure themselves from the approach of their stealthy foe.

Many carnivorous animals, as they crawl towards their prey and prepare to rush or spring on it, lower their heads and crouch, partly, as it would appear, to hide themselves, and partly to get ready for their rush; and this habit in an exaggerated form has become hereditary in our pointers and setters.

This contrast in the attitudes and movements of these two carnivorous animals, under the same pleased and affectionate frame of mind, can be explained, as it appears to me, solely by their movements standing in complete antithesis to those which are naturally assumed, when these animals feel savage and are prepared either to fight or to seize their prey.

Now, it is very clear to me that in so long a period one would have expected that the carnivorous creatures, multiplying unchecked, would have exhausted their food supply and have been compelled to either modify their flesh-eating habits or die of hunger.

We compare these features of their structure with the habits of these animals, and find that the first are carnivorous, that they seize and tear their prey, while the others are herbivorous or grazing animals, living only on vegetable substances, which they chew and grind.

Like carnivorous animals confined in cages, he went and came, smelling for gold in every corner of his house; he studied the cracks and crevices, he sounded the walls, he besought the trees of the garden, the foundations of the house, the roofs of the turrets, the earth and the heavens, to give him back his treasure.

Perhaps you or some of your readers would kindly inform me what it would cost to import two trustworthy baboons, also what would be a fair wage to give them; whether they would come under the provisions of the National Insurance Act, and whether they are vegetarians or carnivorous?

These inequalities of the uterus, and the numerous placentas in consequence, seem to be designed for the purpose of expanding a greater surface for the terminations of the placental vessels for the purpose of receiving oxygenation from the uterine ones; as the progeny of this class of animals are more completely formed before their nativity, than that of the carnivorous classes, and must thence in the latter weeks of pregnancy require greater oxygenation.

A dead mammal must fall upon ground that has just the right consistency to receive it; if the soil is too soft, its several parts will be separated and scattered as readily as though it had fallen upon hard ground where it would be torn to pieces by carnivorous animals.

And he has been readily attracted by them; for he is not one of those egotistic geniuses whose thoughts are fixed on his own interests, nor has he one of those carnivorous minds that sees nothing, looks for nothing, and relishes nothing, unless it may be afterwards useful to it.

After these observations, it will be easily seen that similar conclusions may be drawn with respect to the limbs of carnivorous animals, which require particular conformations to fit them for rapidity of motion in general; and that similar considerations must influence the forms and connections of the vertebrae and other bones constituting the trunk of the body, to fit them for flexibility and readiness of motion in all directions.

Many of the smaller species of fishes, upon leaving these winter resorts, ascend small, clear brooks in large numbers for the purpose of depositing their eggs; as, when hatched in such a place, the young will be comparatively free from the attacks of the larger carnivorous forms.

During the summer the muskrat is, in the main, a herbivorous animal, but in winter necessity develops its carnivorous propensities, and it feeds then mainly upon the mussels and crayfish which it can dig from the bottom of the pond or stream in which its house is built.

George let us say, the mere abrupt appearance of the dragon's head (if of a proper ferocity) will be enough to explain that he intends to eat people; and it will not be necessary for the dragon to explain at length, with animated gestures and playful conversation, that his nature is carnivorous and that he has not merely dropped in to tea.

Here are the largest of the giant dinosaurs closely mingled with the remains of the smaller but powerful carnivorous dinosaurs which preyed upon them, also those of the slow and heavy-moving armored dinosaurs of the period, as well as of the lightest and most bird-like of the dinosaurs.

There is an entirely different class of explanations, however, to be considered, which are consistent both with the continued fitness of structure of the giant dinosaurs themselves and with the survival of their especial food; such, for example, as the introduction of a new enemy more deadly even than the great carnivorous dinosaurs.

These tracks are the footprints of numerous kinds of dinosaurs, large and small, mostly of the carnivorous group, which lived in that region in the earlier part of the Age of Reptiles, and much has been learned from them as to the habits of the animals that made them.

The tracks ascribed to carnivorous dinosaurs run in series with narrow tread, short or long steps, here and there a light impression of tail or forefoot and occasionally the mark of the shank and pelvis when the animal settled back and squatted down to rest a moment.

In this Brontosaurus skeleton several of the bones, especially the spines of the tail vertebrae, when found in the rock, looked as if they had been scored and bitten off, as though by some carnivorous animal which had either attacked the Brontosaurus when alive, or had feasted upon the carcass.

Can we upbraid ourselves then for supporting our lives by the death of a few animals, many of whom are themselves carnivorous, when the infant who has lived for a single day has killed an infinitely greater number of human beings than the longest life would suffice to murder by design?

The well-mounted aborigines hung on the flanks of the great buffalo herds, migrating with them, spurning all treaty obligations, and when opportunity offered murdering the advance guard of civilization with the fiendish atrocity of carnivorous animals.

If its natural power of increase be allowed to act, it can succeed in increasing (the country not undergoing any change in conditions) only by its varying descendants seizing on places at present occupied by other animals: some of them, for instance, being enabled to feed on new kinds of prey, either dead or alive; some inhabiting new stations, climbing trees, frequenting water, and some perhaps becoming less carnivorous.

Allow that the great duty of the insect tribe is to cleanse the earth and atmosphere from countless impurities noxious to the human race, how great a plague would our benefactors themselves become were it not for the various classes of carnivorous insects who prey upon them, and are in their turn the prey of others!

He had a carnivorous and omnivorous mind, with a judicial soul, and controlled his temper with the same inflexible rule that Nature uses when murmuring in zephyrs or shrieking in storms, receding or advancing in dramatic thought, as peace or passion demanded.

The carnivorous flower's first warning that all was not well was received when Stevens' steel-shod feet landed squarely upon its base and one sweeping cut of his sword lopped off the malignant blossom and severed the two tendrils that still held the unconscious Nadia.

Just as they have it completed and ready to start for Cantrell's Comet, where Stevens believes he can obtain the necessary metal for his giant transmitting tube, they experience a close call with carnivorous plants on the satellite and later with savage inhabitants, which precipitates their trip to the comet.

He was about to stoop and pick up all he could gather, when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his right ankle, and to his horror found that a tremendous shoal of the tiny carnivorous fish had come up the river, dimming the clear water like a cloud of silvery mud, and with a sharp cry he turned to escape to shore, and awoke.

If its natural powers of increase be allowed to act, it can succeed in increasing (the country not undergoing any change in its conditions) only by its varying descendants seizing on places at present occupied by other animals: some of them, for instance, being enabled to feed on new kinds of prey, either dead or alive; some inhabiting new stations, climbing trees, frequenting water, and some perhaps becoming less carnivorous.

The young fawn gives out no scent upon its track until it is sufficiently grown to make good running, and instinct teaches the mother that this wise provision of nature to preserve the helpless little quadruped from the ravages of wolves, panthers, and other carnivorous beasts, will be defeated if she remains with it, as her tracks can not be concealed.

A great want of one part of the animal world has consisted in the desire of the exclusive possession of the females; and these have acquired weapons to combat each other for this purpose, as the very thick, shield-like, horny skin on the shoulder of the boar is a defense only against animals of his own species who strike obliquely upwards, nor are his tusks for other purposes except to defend himself, as he is not naturally a carnivorous animal.

It was just the kind of odor that one would expect to meet with in the den of a carnivorous beast, and Phil peered keenly into the darkness, more than half-expecting to see the shining eyes of a jaguar or puma glaring at him when his own eyes had become accustomed to the subdued light of the place.

The island was a favorable spot for the rabbits, for there do not appear to have been any carnivorous beasts or birds to harry them, nor were there other land mammals competing with them for food; and, as a result, we are told that they had so far increased and multiplied in forty years as to be described as "innumerable."

With its elongated toothless head and thin tongue, it seems utterly incapable, at the first glance, of defending itself, not only against the jaguar or puma, but, notwithstanding its great size, against even the attacks of the smallest carnivorous animals of the wilds, as it moves with toilsome and awkward steps over the ground.

The majority of the individuals, therefore, can never make full use of their enormously powerful wings, till the exceptional case occurs of an individual being blown out to sea, or driven to emigrate by the incursion of some carnivorous animal, or the pressure of scarcity of food.

At high tide fishes come and crunch them, shells and all, and multitudes of carnivorous snails are waiting to set their file-like tongues at work, which mercilessly drill through the lime shells, bringing death in a more subtle but no less certain form.

A great want of one part of the animal world has consisted in the desire of the exclusive possession of the females; and these have acquired weapons to combat each other for this purpose, as the very thick shield-like horny skin on the shoulder of the boar is a defense only against animals of his own species, who strike obliquely upwards, nor are his tushes for other purposes, except to defend himself, as he is not naturally a carnivorous animal.

There are amongst carnivorous mammals various smells allied to that of civet which are not so agreeable to man as that substance; for instance, the odor of the fox and of the badger, and yet more celebrated, the terrible, awe-inspiring smell of the fluid emitted in self-defense by the skunk from a sac in the hinder part of the body.

Ever since animal life began upon our planet, there existed, in all the departments of being, carnivorous classes, who could not live but by the death of their neighbors, and who were armed, in consequence, for their destruction, like the butcher with his axe and knife, and the angler with his hook and spear.

Even with the aid of the cunning and alertness of the apes, their power of observation, their combination for defense and attack, and their general mental superiority to the tenants of the animal world, their supremacy in the event of their becoming carnivorous must have been confined to the smaller creatures, and could not have been established over the larger animals of their native habitat except through the aid of other than their natural powers.

We seem to see ancestral man, in his early career as a carnivorous animal, seizing the stones and sticks that came readily to hand, and flinging them with some little skill at his prey, in the same manner as we can perceive the baboon doing the same thing.

At the same time, I think, it cannot be denied that those races which have been in the habit of eating meat for many centuries have, as regards physique, demonstrated that whether man was or was not intended to be a carnivorous animal, his development into a carnivorous animal has at any rate succeeded in enhancing and developing his physical powers.

The stomach of the infant is the simple stomach of the carnivorous animal, intended for food which shall not need to stay long in that receptacle, but shall be speedily digested; and it is only as the child grows older, and takes more varied food, that the stomach alters somewhat in form, that it assumes a more rounded shape, resembling somewhat that of the herbivorous animal, and suited to retain the food longer.

A great blundering fly had just bobbed into the net and the spider, with hideous, carnivorous zest, was scrambling for it, when the guardian of the manor returned with the family solicitor, a little man who bore in his arms a bundle of papers which, after the customary greetings, he spread upon the table.

So, also, any deviation from those tints best adapted to conceal a carnivorous animal would render the pursuit of its prey much more difficult, would place it at a disadvantage among its fellows and in a time of scarcity would probably cause it to starve to death.

A dwelling of this kind may last for three or four years, and the animal here tranquilly enjoys the fruits of its industry, as long as man fails to discover the retreat; for the beaver can escape by swimming from all carnivorous animals excepting, perhaps, the Otter.

"No, my lady," retorted Roque; "the danger is not so great, for after all, the worst that can befall us is but to be hung upon a tree, there to dance to the tune of the whistling midnight wind, and to afford a luscious repast to the ravens, and other carnivorous gentry that hold tenantry in these wild passes."

The lesser marsupials and other groundlings were glad to have this intelligence, and the approach of dawn found them all busily feeding, watchful only with regard to the ordinary enemies among their own kind, the small carnivorous animals and the snake people.

Carnivorous creatures, with the most formidable powers of destruction, have left their remains in all parts of the geological series; and indeed, up to the introduction of man, the carnivorous fishes, reptiles, and quadrupeds were the lords and tyrants of the earth.

Understanding from our one authority that he needed a carnivorous diet, we tempted him, day after day, with every variety of meat brought to our door in the butcher's white-hooded cart with its retinue of hungry dogs, but nothing whatever would our boarder touch.

The author shows that digestion is a process which occurs throughout animated nature, and beginning with digestion in plants, and describing many original and other experiments with carnivorous plants, he passes on to digestion in the lower animals, and then deals fully with the many complicated problems offered by digestion in the higher animals and man.

In so far as it is diverted from it, it may be harmless, amusing, or even exhilarating to those who carry it on, but it possesses no more social significance than the orderly business of ants and bees, the strutting of peacocks, or the struggles of carnivorous animals over carrion.

This exclusiveness of the carnivorous larva seems all the more probable inasmuch as the larva reared on vegetable food refuses in any way to lend itself to a change of diet.

It seems to imply the further notion, that the same providence which dispersed and preserved the human race in all quarters and climates of the world, was inadequate to the same results in the case of the lower animals, and that it was of such moment to keep every locality stocked with savage and carnivorous beasts as to call, from time to time, for the interposition of creative power.

There are, moreover, kinds that devour their meat before the life is out of it; while other carnivorous species, like the vulture among birds, prey only on such carrion as may chance to fall in their way, and in search of which their lives seem principally to be spent.

They were not always the same tribes; but when one class of carnivora disappeared, another was created to take their place, in order to keep down the excessive multiplication of other races, which appears to be the grand object accomplished by the carnivorous races.

The naturalist does not surely find that serpents live upon dust, for they all are carnivorous, and they are as perfectly adapted to crawl upon the ground as other animals to different modes of progression; and though cursed above all cattle, they are apparently as happy as other animals.

It is far less than it would be, if animals were left to perish by famine, or by slow degrees, from deficient nourishment; so that the existence of the carnivorous races, seeming at first view intended to convert the world into a vast Golgotha, does in fact add greatly to the amount of enjoyment, because it so prodigiously multiplies the number of species of animals, and lessens the sufferings of death.

A careless observer might suppose that in this second long age of warmth and plenty that was now beginning, nature was merely repeating the first, with herbivorous and carnivorous mammals to parallel the herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs, with birds replacing pterodactyls and so on.

Rats actually destroy more poultry and game, both eggs and young chicks, than all the birds and wild mammals combined; yet some of their enemies among our most useful birds of prey and carnivorous mammals are persecuted almost to the point of extinction.

Because, even although it might rise to the height mentioned, the ark could not have contained, according to known physical laws, all the living things of the earth, together with their food, for so long a time; considering that lions, tigers, panthers, leopards, ounces, rhinoceroses, bears, wolves, hyenas, eagles, hawks, kites, vultures, falcons, and all carnivorous animals, which feed on flesh alone, would have died of hunger, even after having devoured all the other species.

Unfortunately, it is the universal testimony of the men who have devoted their lives to the training of fierce creatures that the most docile, obedient and friendly carnivorous creature is sure to be in an ugly humor sooner or later, and then is the great time of test.

The resemblance of the skulls of these creatures to those of Carnivorous mammals is very striking, and nothing can be more singular than their early appearance and their decadence before the advent of those Tertiary mammals which in more modern times occupy their place.

Lyell enumerates in all thirty-three species from the Mesozoic, all of them of small size, and all more or less nearly related to existing Australian Marsupials, though differing much among themselves, and including both carnivorous and herbivorous forms.

And since these mild and harmless animals, which seem to have been created merely to clothe us, and to nourish us with their milk and flesh, have not been endowed by nature either with the intelligence, or the activity, or the cunning, or the invention, or the skill bestowed on the omnivorous and carnivorous species, hard is their fate under the pressing needs of hunger.

The imports, however, are chiefly from the enormous herds of South American black-cattle, which have multiplied to such an extent in the Brazilian territories, that they are now slaughtered for the sake of their hides and horns, and their carcasses left to be devoured by the innumerable carnivorous animals which infest the jungles.

It seems quite out of all fitness of nature that this merry fellow should turn murderer, that this dainty connoisseur of choice nuts and tender buds, and earliest discoverer and taster of the maple's sweetness, should become so grossly carnivorous and savagely bloodthirsty.

The tendency of the young of certain species of turtles (especially captives) to be more carnivorous than adults is probably due to the association of movement with food; recognition of inanimate objects as food is presumably learned by older individuals.

There has been some dispute as to the naming of the city, and the possibility of the American bison having frequented this part of the country, but it is generally believed that herds of these herbivorous animals did graze on Eastern soil, and that the attacks of carnivorous beasts and the constant warfare waged against them by the Indians drove them to the Western plains.

Struck by the evident crushing power of the great ridged molars, Peale was led to believe that the mastodon was a creature of carnivorous habits, and so described it, but this error is excusable, the more that to this day, when the mastodon is well known, and its description published time and again in the daily papers, finders of the teeth often consider them as belonging to some huge beast of prey.

Though wool is possessed in considerable quantity by carnivorous animals, especially bears, yet the herbivorous quadrupeds, never to mention the sheep, are principally noticed for its growth, and for affording a commodity which becomes an article of profit in the hands of some tribes.

A carnivorous American, full of beef and mutton, who mourns with indignant sorrow because bulls and goats were killed in Judea three thousand years ago, has reached the climax of sentimental goodness, and should be permitted to dictate on all questions of peace and war.

Pieces of the toughest meats and bone have been enclosed in perforated metallic tubes, and thrust down the stomach of carnivorous birds, and in the space of about twenty-four hours the meats were found to be diminished, or, in other words, digested to three-fourths of their bulk, while the bones had totally disappeared.

He was put upon a very careful regimen in the matter of diet, and wrote, with a touch of rueful amusement, of the vegetarian meals to which he was restricted: "I have been obliged to exchange my carnivorous propensities for those of a more innocent and primitive nature, picking up my fare as our good parents did before the Fall."

The Plesiosaurus was a marine, air-breathing, carnivorous reptile, combining the characters of the head of a Lizard, the teeth of a Crocodile, a neck of excessive length resembling that of a Swan, the ribs of a Chameleon, a body of moderate size, and a very short tail, and, finally, four paddles resembling those of a Whale.

We may conclude, then, that besides the more general mode in which these caverns were filled with bones, the two other causes which we have enumerated may have been in operation; that is to say, they were the habitual sojourn of carnivorous and destructive animals, and they became the retreat of sick animals on some particular occasions.

As we find him in the caves and gravels he is already a fallen man, out of harmony with his environment and the foe of his fellow creatures, contriving against them instruments of destruction more fatal than those furnished by nature to the carnivorous wild beasts.

We have thus traces of two primitive or antediluvian races, one probably mild and subsisting on vegetable food, and another fierce, rude and carnivorous, perhaps a product of degeneracy of the former; and a third, or mixed race, of greater physical power and energy than either of the others.

Insects and other carnivorous animals very speedily pull them to pieces, putrefaction takes place, and so, out of the hundreds of thousands that are known to die every year, it is the rarest thing in the world to see one embedded in such a way that its remains would be preserved for a lengthened period.

In war excursions great attention is paid to the flight of birds, particularly those of the carnivorous species, which are deemed typical of war and bravery, and their wing and tail feathers are appropriated as marks of honor, by the successful warrior.

The sight of the lynx is said to be so piercing that the ancients attributed to it the faculty of seeing through stone walls: it may, however, be asserted with truth that it distinguishes its prey at a greater distance than any other carnivorous quadruped.

Eminently carnivorous, voracious and fierce; beneath staring eyes are spread eight strong fleshy arms furnished with tenacious suckers, which adhere with unrelenting pertinacity, and the arms are swiftly twined round the struggling prey, which vainly strives to disengage itself from so fearful and so fatal embrace.

It occurred to me as strange that both of these birds, carnivorous and well known as destroyers of eggs and nests, seemed to live happily together, though the eagle, if it so desired, could have destroyed the nest of the magpie with one grip of its powerful talons.

There are no carnivorous wild beasts in Madagascar; but, there is abundance of game to tempt the sportsman: and Louis, with his gun on his shoulder, followed the chase of partridges, quails, and pheasants, for several miles, until he reached the border of a thick bamboo jungle.

The Indians, for their part, were not slow in availing themselves of this new and convenient source of livelihood, and, according to a Uruguayan writer became "carnivorous from necessity and equestrian from force of imitation."

Some are said occasionally to resort to berries and other fruit for food, but as a rule they are carnivorous, feeding chiefly on birds and their eggs, small mammals, as squirrels, hares, rabbits and moles, but chiefly mice of various kinds, and occasionally snakes, lizards and frogs.

From this and other strange characters seen in the Dinosaurs, we learn that they in their day played the part of our modern quadrupeds, whether carnivorous or herbivorous, and showed a remarkable approach to the mammalian type, which of course is a much higher one.

It is justly concluded, both from the vast number of bones discovered, and from the fact of their great diversity in size and other features, that they must have had the country pretty much to themselves; or, in other words, they enjoyed immunity from the attacks of carnivorous quadrupeds.

This peculiar plant is not only a parasite on trees, but is also a carnivorous species, provided with the means of capturing and digesting very small animals, and a more detailed account of its form and habits will be found in our short chapter devoted especially to carnivorous plants.

The plants to which we refer are often spoken of as insectivorous species; but although in nearly all cases the animal food consists almost entirely of insects, it is not entirely derived from this one group of animal life, and therefore the term carnivorous is rather more appropriate.

Accordingly, it was at this epoch that the small ancestral insectivorous mammals first forsook their arboreal habitat to try a life on the open plains, where their descendants developed on the one hand into the carnivorous and other groups, in which the toes are armed with nails or claws, and on the other into the hoofed group, inclusive of such monsters as the elephant and the giraffe.

This becomes still more striking if we adopt the view usually taken by evolutionists, that primitive man was a ferocious and carnivorous creature, warring with and overcoming the powerful animals of the Post-glacial period, and contending with the rigors of a severe climate.

For example, the various carnivorous animals, such as the lion, wolf, and bear, are used as emblems of destruction in various ways; while the carnivorous birds, such as the eagle and hawk, and the destructive insects, such as the locust and the caterpillar, are all similarly employed in strengthening and illustrating the words of Holy Writ.

These flies are carnivorous in habit, deriving their food from living as well as from freshly killed animals, and their short, fleshy proboscis contains a piercing bristle by which they can puncture the skins of the animals that provide them with food.

Again, as the sea is so thinly populated at such great depths, the carnivorous species do not find abundant food always at hand, hence they are often provided with such mouths and stomachs as will allow them to make the best of favorable opportunities, some being capable of swallowing a fish quite as large as themselves.

We suspect that this instinct for preserving food for future use accounts for most of the excessive killing by carnivorous animals instead of this latter indicating an aimless desire for slaughter which would unnecessarily deplete the food supply of the future.

Naturally, they are strictly carnivorous, not hunting down their prey by a protracted chase, like the wolf and dog, but by lying in wait, or by moving stealthily with their supple joints and cushioned feet till within spring of their victims, on which they dart with a growl, as if the muscular effort of the moment were painful even to themselves.