eli5: Why some animals are born with the instinct to eat meat, while others have the instinct to eat plants?
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Because their ancestors had that instinct(originally by chance) and survived to pass it on. Instincts that match the organisms capabilities are more likely to get passed on than those that don’t. An herbivore with a mutation that makes it only want meat is extremely unlikely to obtain enough meat to survive, and a carnivore that only eats vegetables is unlikely to get enough calories out of it to survive.
Though many animals in either category will opportunistically eat from the other category.
Herbivores are walking bags of accumulated resources, which carnivores are optimized to exploit. Similarly, plants are a store of accumulated resources, which herbivores are optimized to exploit.
Omnivores are more flexible, but not as good as the specialists when competing for the same resource.
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