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Herbivory is of extreme ecological importance and prevalence among insects.Perhaps one third (or 500,000) of all described species are herbivores. [4] Herbivorous insects are by far the most important animal pollinators, and constitute significant prey items for predatory animals, as well as acting as major parasites and predators of plants; parasitic species often induce the formation of galls.
Herbivore is the anglicized form of a modern Latin coinage, herbivora, cited in Charles Lyell's 1830 Principles of Geology. [3] Richard Owen employed the anglicized term in an 1854 work on fossil teeth and skeletons. [3] Herbivora is derived from Latin herba 'small plant, herb' [4] and vora, from vorare 'to eat, devour'. [5]
For example, there are roughly 3,300 species of living lizards and approximately 3% of them eat at least some plants. [4] Though the exact definition of herbivory varies significantly between scientists, most define herbivorous lepidosaurs as those that consume plants for approximately 70-90% of its diet.
This is one example of how overbrowsing can lead to the loss of reproductive individuals in a population, and a lack of recruitment of young plants. Plants also differ in their palatability to herbivores. At high densities of herbivores, plants that are highly selected as browse may be missing small and large individuals from the population. [18]
Various carnivorans, with feliforms to the left, and caniforms to the right. Carnivora is an order of placental mammals that have specialized in primarily eating flesh. Members of this order are called carnivorans, or colloquially carnivores, though the term more properly refers to any meat-eating organisms, and some carnivoran species are omnivores or herbivores.
The small intestine is the main site of nutrient absorption. The surface area of the digesta is greatly increased here because of the villi that are in the small intestine. This increased surface area allows for greater nutrient absorption. Microbes produced in the reticulorumen are also digested in the small intestine.
For example, according to a study done on North American bison feeding on shortgrass plains in north-eastern Colorado, the cattle consumed a total of thirty-six different species of plant. Of that thirty-six, five grass species were favoured and consumed the most pervasively.
Elephants are an example of a mammalian folivore. In zoology, a folivore is a herbivore that specializes in eating leaves. Mature leaves contain a high proportion of hard-to-digest cellulose, less energy than other types of foods, and often toxic compounds. [1] For this reason, folivorous animals tend to have long digestive tracts and slow ...