The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution

by Richard Dawkins

The other main group of small laurasiatheres are the so-called insectivores. The order Insectivora includes shrews, moles, hedge-hogs and other small, snouty creatures which eat insects and small terrestrial invertebrates like worms, slugs and centipedes. As with Carnivora, I shall use a capital letter to denote the taxonomic group, Insectivora, as opposed to insectivore with a small i, which means just anything that eats insects. So, a pangolin (or scaly anteater) is an insectivore but not an Insectivore. A mole is an Insectivore, which actually eats insects. As I have already remarked, it is a pity the early taxonomists used names like Insectivora and Carnivora, which are only loosely correlated to the descriptions of preferred diet with which they are so readily confused.