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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.
Oligophagy is a term for intermediate degrees of selectivity, referring to animals that eat a relatively small range of foods, either because of preference or necessity. [2] Another classification refers to the specific food animals specialize in eating, such as: Carnivore: the eating of animals Araneophagy: eating spiders; Avivore: eating birds
The latter especially is determined by the body mass of the herbivore, with small herbivores selecting for high-quality forage, and with increasing body mass animals are less selective. [20] Several theories attempt to explain and quantify the relationship between animals and their food, such as Kleiber's law , Holling's disk equation and the ...
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 metabolisms.
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.
Ruminating mammals include cattle, all domesticated and wild bovines, goats, sheep, giraffes, deer, gazelles, and antelopes. [5] It has also been suggested that notoungulates also relied on rumination, as opposed to other atlantogenatans that rely on the more typical hindgut fermentation , though this is not entirely certain.
[20]: 59–61 It is the second largest land mammal native to Asia, after the Asian elephant. [21] [22] Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) The hippopotamus also known as the hippo, common hippopotamus or river hippopotamus is a large mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is semiaquatic and spends most of its time resting in water. [23]
These herbivorous mammals are the largest land animals on Earth; males average 3.3 metres (11 ft) tall at the shoulders and 5.5 tonnes (12,000 lb) in weight, whereas females average 2.8 metres (9.2 ft) in height and 3.7 tonnes (8,200 lb) in weight.