an eating preference -- in this case, meat -- and for members of a primate order, Carnivora. Most members of this extraordinarily varied group eat meat, including, in some cases, the "meat" of insects. Bears and some other species are omnivorous, meaning that they also eat plants, and hyenas and jackals are classic examples of detritivores, or animals who feed on the remains of other creatures. The distinction between detritivore and carnivore relates not to the materials each consumes but to their place in the food web. Rather than consume live creatures, hyenas and jackals feed on the carcasses of dead ones. Usually these creatures are artiodactyls (discussed later), such as antelopes, which have been killed by other carnivores -- big cats, such as the lion or cheetah . After the big cats have fed on the fleshy parts of the prey, hyenas come to consume the flesh that remains, and they are followed by jackals and vultures, swoop in to pick the bones. These detritivores help process the remains of formerly living things, which ultimately return to the soil. (See Food Webs for more on this subject.) Clearly, all members of order Carnivora eat meat, though in different ways and sometimes in combination with fruit or other vegetation. Natural selection has equipped them for this purpose with sharp claws and teeth. Carnivora includes some 270 species grouped into ten families, listed here: Note that Felidae is a particularly varied family of some 36 species: lions, lynxes, tigers, leopards, and