Constructor for Comparator Interface in Java

Question

I know that an interface cannot have constructors and we cannot make object of interface.

This is not possible:

Comparator cmp = new Comparator(); 

I don't understand how is it possible to make an anonymous inner class with the keyword "new Comparator()". Doesn't this keyword create an object of the type Comparator?

Here is the complete code:

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.List;

public class DemoApp {

    public static void main(String args[]) {

        List<String> animals = new ArrayList<>();
        animals.add("elephant");
        animals.add("snake");
        animals.add("lion");
        animals.add("mangoose");
        animals.add("cat");
        animals.add("tiger");

        Collections.sort(animals, new Comparator<String>() {
            public int compare(String s1, String s2) {
                return -s1.compareTo(s2);
            }
        });
        displayList(animals);
    }

    public static void displayList(List<String> anim) {
        for (String animal : anim) {
            System.out.print(animal + " "); 
        }
        System.out.println();
    }
 }

Answer 1

Doesn't this keyword create an object of the type Comparator?

Yes it does, but it doesn't create an instance of class Comparator (since Comparator is not a class).

It create an instance of an anonymous class that implements the Comparator interface. Since that class instance implements Comparator, you can say that its type is Comparator.