cats, dogs, bears

Mammal Classification: Understanding How Mammals Relate to One Another (Part II):
so cats & dogs & bears are the three families that make up the Carnivore order

Carnivores
Carnivores include mammals such as dogs, foxes, wolves, bears, racoons, hyenas, and cats.
Although the term carnivore is used to refer to meat-eating animals, members of the Order Carnivora are not exclusively meat-eaters (some have mixed diets or herbivorous diets). Yet, most carnivores are well-suited for hunting. Many are fast, agile creatures with keen vision, hearing, and smell.

• Family Canidae: Dogs, foxes, wolves, coyotes, and jackals all belong to the family of mammals known as the canids. The most familiar member of this group, the domestic dog, descended from wolves over 10,000 years ago. Many canids are social creatures, forming packs, hunting together, and defending a common territory.
• Family Ursidae: The bear family includes eight species: the polar bear, American black bear, spectacled bear, giant panda, sloth bear, sun bear, brown bear, and Asiatic black bear. In general, bears feed on a mixed diet that includes insects, fish, and plants. The polar bear is unique in its eating habits though, feeding exclusively on meat.
• Family Felidae: The cats are muscular, agile hunters with sharp claws, acute vision, and specialized teeth. This family includes tigers, cheetahs, jaguars, leopards, lions, and of course, the domestic cat.

also, others orders are meat-eaters. like: Primates. also an order, within the mammal class.


MIACIDS: This ancestral group gave rise to cats, bears, dogs, skunks, mongooses, and hyaenas.
In zoological classification cats belong to
the Class : Mammalia (they are hair covered animals that suckle their young with breast milk)
the Order : Carnivora (they eat meat)
the Family: Felidae.

Genus: Within this family there are three further subdivisions called genera
Panthera (cats that roar) rooooar. like tigers and lions.
Acinonyx (the Cheetah) why's he get his own?
Felis (all other 'small' cats) like house kitties.

and each genus contains individual species, which is a group that normally breeds and produces fertile offspring.

Kingdom -three right? Plants, Animals, and.. Fungi? what do these make up? all the phyla make up a kindom. all the kingdoms make what? life on earth?
Phylum
Class
Order -remember class above order. ( kate says: 'king philip came over from germany stoned.' )
Family
Genus
Species

I was thinking whether raccoons are more like cats or like dogs. or like bears. so then I was thinking what is the difference btw cats and dogs? and bears? why classified differently? how is a pug less like a kitty cat than like a greyhound?