The very first mammals were carnivores – small, scurrying, scourges of insects. Shifting from meat to plants was an evolutionary breakthrough for our group. The sheer abundance and variety of plants allowed herbivores to diversify much faster than their carnivore kin, and spread into niches that had been vacated by the demise of the large dinosaurs. Today, the majority of living mammal species eat plants, and most orders have at least some herbivorous members. Even the Carnivora – the order that includes cats, dogs, bears, and hyenas – count the bamboo-eating pandas among their number. So,
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