Do all carnivorous and/or omnivorous animals turn to cannibalism under stress?

Factual Questions
1

Are there *any * omnivorous or carnivorous animals that will not eat members it’s own species if hungry and desperate enough?

2

Anteaters.

3

Do you ask just about eating, or do you think about hunting and killing?

I guess hungry anteater would eat another anteater if it was killed and diced into small enough pieces…

4

Baleen whales…if you consider them carnivorous (against krill).

I’d think pretty much anything with specialized mouthparts or a really large disparity with its prey size would not be able to cannibalize.

Sailboat

5

Never mind that, you’ll be hard presssed to find a carnivore that doesn’t indulge in cannibalism on a fairly regular basis even if it isn’t desparate. Cannibalism seem to be the norm for carniivores and, aside from the aforementioned animals with specialised mouthparts, I can’t thinik of any that don’t indulge in cannibalism on a fairly routine basis.

6

Well, since we’re in GQ…CITE!

7

You want a reference that I can’t think of any carnivorous animals that don’t engage in routine cannibalism? OK, Blake, 2008.

“I can’t thinik of any that don’t indulge in cannibalism on a fairly routine basis”.

8

It’s not terribly specific, and they don’t link to the source material, but that’s something.

9

An anecdote: When I was a wee lass, I begged my parents for gerbils. Oh, how the little mouse-like animals loved me.

I kept their cage nice and clean, with fresh wood shavings. Their water bottle was always filled to the brim with fresh tap water, and I fed them delicious and nutrient-rich pellets a couple times every day…

So why, God, why did I come home from school one day to see my darling Morgan’s skin peeled back and ribs picked clean?

I was about 8 or 9 years old, and you can imagine, 16 years later, I can still picture my poor mangled gerbil’s corpse as vividly as if it had happened yesterday.

True story. I don’t think she just blew up spontaneously or anything. I’m fairly confident that Precious ate her.

And for those of you curious about what became of sweet, sweet Precious? As if learning at a young age the physical anatomy of the gerbil was not enough, I came home to find that Precious had “gotten hers” when I found her snapped into an “L” shape between the beam and the stand in the treadmill.