How animals eat their food
How animals eat their food
Animals And Their Food Habits
Animals and their Food Habits
Table of Contents
Food is the basic requirement of all living organisms including animals. Food is required not only to satisfy the hunger of an animal but it is needed to regulate the energy flow in animals. Animals need energy to perform daily activities.
If we take an example of wild animals- a herbivorous like zebra or deer need a lot of energy to escape from its predator. On the other hand, a predator like a lion or a tiger also needs tremendous energy to chase its prey.
The life of a wildlife animal is quite challenging where it always needs a high energy level to compete with other animals.
However, animals and their eating habits vary from animal to animal. Some animals depend on plants & trees for food requirements, whereas some others need flesh to survive. The animals and their feeding habits depend on the type of animal i.e. whether it is a carnivorous or herbivorous animal.
The animals have characteristic features that define these animals and their eating habits. For example- carnivorous animals have canine teeth that help them to tear flesh quite easily, on the other hand, the jaws of herbivorous animals are dominated by molar teeth to chew the food easily.
As animals are also an important member of the ecosystem, hence we should have some knowledge about these members. Here you will get to know the different animals and their feeding habits. It will help you to understand the food habits of the animal.
Food habits of different animals
The digestive systems of the animals are developed according to their eating habits. The digestive system of each animal is well-developed to digest the type of food it eats.
For example- carnivores have a simple digestive system as compared to herbivores. The digestive system supports different animals and their feeding habits to stay healthy and active.
Animals eat flesh
The animals that depend on other animals to satisfy their hunger come under the carnivorous category. These animals eat the flesh of other animals such as tigers, polar bears, lions, jaguars, wolves, crocodiles, foxes, etc.
Carnivores get energy and other nutrients mainly from animal tissues. These animals are apex predators as they occupy the top seat in a food chain.
The carnivores have well-defined canine teeth to kill their prey with occasional numbers of molar teeth.
Animals eat plants
The animals that feed on plants, grass, different parts of trees like root, leaves, fruits, flowers, etc. are herbivores. In general terms, plant-eating animals are known as herbivores. For example- cows, deer, horses, giraffe, goats, rabbit, elephant, zebra, etc.
Herbivores get energy only from plants. As far as the digestive system of herbivorous is concerned, they have a special digestive system that allows them to digest different kinds of plants.
Herbivores have strong molar teeth as they need to grind their food for easy digestion. They have very small (similar to non-existent) canine teeth irrespective of carnivore’s teeth.
Animals eat both plant and flesh
These animals are generally known as opportunists as these animals and their feeding habits are a combination of both carnivores and herbivores.
These animals are omnivores because they feed on plants as well as the meat of other animals. For example- bear, cat, dog, chicken, rat, pig, skunk, etc.
These animals and their eating habits provide them a long-term good health and reproduction benefits. There are some insect omnivores such as parasitoid wasps that behave like carnivores and herbivores in different stages of their life.
They feed on other anthropods in larval stage whereas in the adult stage they feed on nectar. These animals act as pollinators as they play an important role in the life-cycle of some plants.
As omnivorous animals and their eating habits are similar to both carnivores and herbivores, hence they have a combination of teeth. They have sharp front teeth to eat flesh as well as molar teeth to grind their vegetarian food.
Animals eat dead remains of animals
Scavengers are animals that feed on dead remains of other animals. These animals play an important role in the environment. They act as decomposers and contribute to the nutrient cycle.
For example- vulture, hyena, etc. If scavenger had not been present in the ecosystem, it would have been full of dead remains of other species.
Scavengers have a very strong digestive system that allows them to consume the leftover of other animals. Their immune system supports them tremendously which protects them from the adverse effects of eating decaying carcasses.
Animals with their unusual food habits
Some animals have unusual ways to feed. These animals consume anything they find easily, whereas some others are quite fussy in their food habits. Here is a list of animals and their food habits that may sound quite unusual to you.Hyena
Hyena is a very flexible animal that almost eats anything to survive. It feeds on the leftovers of other animals or sometimes even steal food from other big cats like a lion. As they know how to grab an opportunity, they even eat bones, hooves, horns, hair, etc. to calm down their hunger.
Few herbivores
Some herbivores like cows, goats, camels, sheep, and giraffe, etc. have more than one stomach unlike us. These animals have four stomachs.
Since they have enough space in their stomach to store food they consume quickly once they come across anything edible. Later on, they chew their gobbled food patiently to enjoy it.
African Penguin
African Penguins struggle very hard to fill their stomach. They swim up to 40 km every day to get food. If still, they feel hungry, they can even swim up to 100 km a day to get food. Isn’t it surprising, how an animal can travel so much to find food for it?
Starfish
Have you seen a starfish? It is an amazing sea creature but it has a very odd food habit. Starfish moves its stomach outside the body to eat food.
Once caught a food item, the starfish fills it with digestive juices and waits for some time. Once its prey becomes soft enough to eat then it consumes its food patiently.
Egg-eating snake
An African egg-eating snake takes too much to eat which is very tough for it to manage. They swallow eggs that are much bigger than their head. It got stuck until the eggs are cracked and later on the shell is spat out.
Civet Cat
Civet cat likes to go tipsy. It usually feeds on birds, scorpions, small rodents, etc. and also loves to have palm juice (when it gets a chance).
Palm juice is its favourite drink. If civet cat drinks much amount of fermented palm juice it goes tipsy and also falls out of their tree.
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzees take good care of their health. They know how to get well soon when they fall sick. They eat a leaf from one tree & a leaf from another tree and very soon they get relaxed from their belly problems.
Koala
Koala is a cute little animal but you may be surprised to know that it is a gourmet. It feeds on eucalyptus leaves. It may consume many pounds of leaves in a day. Koala is very particular in accepting eucalyptus like a connoisseur.
This is not the end of the list of animals and their food habits, these are many more animals with different feeding habits.
All the animals and their feeding habits are variable whether it is a flesh-eating animal or plant-eating animal.
No matter what animals eat but the important thing is that each one of them is important to the environment. They play a vital role in balancing the energy –flow in the ecosystem.
How animals eat their food
Check out this video entitled ‘How animals eat their food’, that I sure hope makes you laugh or at least puts a smile on your face.
Okay, now I want to present some vocabulary related to how we eat and eating in general.
First let’s look at how we eat, and to do that we need to look at the mouth.
In the mouth we have teeth, which are held in place by gums. We also have a tongue. We use our teeth to bite and chew and we use our tongue and palate to swallow. As we swallow food travels down our throat and esophagus to get to the stomach. In the stomach the food is broken down during the process of digestion. Then the food moves on the small intestines where food is broken down even more before it moves on to the large intestine. Food moves through the large intestine to the end where you find the anus. It is from here that the food material that was not be broken down or digested is removed from the body.
Now, let’s look at some words you can use to talk about eating:
to dine – to eat, specifically to eat dinner
Example: What time are we going to dine tonight?
to devour – to eat quickly due to hunger
Example: After his 10 mile run, Ben devoured his lunch.
to munch – to eat something continuously or over a period of time
Example: Sally munched on chips all afternoon.
to nibble – to take small bites of something
Example: Ezra took a nibble of his dinner and said he didn’t like it.
to nosh – to eat enthusiastically
Example: Everyone is here, it is time to nosh!
to scarf (to scarf down) – to eat something hungrily
Example: I scarfed down the last piece of cake before anyone else could get it.
Build vocabulary, practice pronunciation, and more with Transparent Language Online. Available anytime, anywhere, on any device.
About the Author: Gabriele
Hi there! I am one of Transparent Language’s ESL bloggers. I am a 32-year-old native English speaker who was born and raised in the United States. I am living in Washington, DC now, but I have lived all over the US and also spent many years living and working abroad. I started teaching English as a second language in 2005 after completing a Master’s in Applied Linguists and a Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults’ (CELTA). Since that time I have taught ESL in the United States at the community college and university level. I have also gone on to pursue my doctorate in psychology and now I also teach courses in psychology. I like to stay connected to ESL learners around the world through Transparent Languages ESL Blog. Please ask questions and leave comments on the blog and I will be sure to answer them.
Comments:
I’ve learned the PV to pig out or to wolf down, but I guess they’re more like slang!
Anyway, thanks for this lesson!
@Thaís “Pig out” and “wolf down” other great ways of saying ‘to eat’ and they usually mean to eat a lot or eat fast.
Thank you for adding to the list!
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How Do Jellyfish Eat? (And What Do They Eat?)
Have you ever wondered how Jellyfish eat and how they digest food? We have done a ton of research on the Jellyfish and here’s everything you could possibly want to know about the eating habits of the little fellas.
How do jellyfish eat? The Jellyfish does not actively seek out food. It will capture plankton floats nearby. However, they can propel themselves to attract food. Jellies have 4-8 oral arms to capture food from the tentacles and into their mouth.
But that’s the very short version.
There’s a lot more to say as you will see below. We have found a lot of fun facts and quirky features about the jellies. They are just as crazy and funny as they look!
Table of Contents
Jellyfish are extraordinary animals.
They truly are very unique in the sense that they have a very simple nervous system compared to other types of animals and humans. And they tend to eat anything that comes their way depending on their size.
So it’s fun to study how it manages to do basic stuff like eating and breeding.
HOW do Jellyfish eat?
Let’s dig a step deeper and look at the answer in more detail.
As we looked that in the introduction to this article the jellyfish will not actively search out food. It will passively float around and feed on any plankton type of food that floats by it.
It doesn’t have a brain so it depends on more mechanics and basic things to feed.
Here’s how it’s done in more detail:
1) First, the tentacles will catch the food
The jellyfish has long tentacles which are used to capture the food in the first place.
Plankton will pass by the animal and once it does it will stick to the tentacles. These tentacles can reach up to 100 feet (!) (3 meters) for some species.
It’s a rather passive process(remember that it has no brain) where the Jellyfish just happens to float into these little bits and pieces of food by an incident.
When the food touches the tentacles it gets poisoned. So if it isn’t dead already it will be soon. First, the little animal will be paralyzed and it’ll eventually be killed so the jellyfish can eat it.
Some of the bigger jellyfish will have a stinging thread curled up inside it which it can throw out towards the prey:
2) The oral arms put the food into the mouth
The oral arms near the mouth will capture that food and transport it into the mouth.
These are much smaller and shorter than the tentacles and will actively grab the plankton etc. and move it the rest of the way up to the mouth. The mouth is placed in the center of the animal and it’s directly coupled to the stomach.
The mouth looks mostly just like a little hole. It’s a very simple mouth that will only do some basic stuff like directing the food into the stomach and shoot out water in order to move the body forward. So the mouth is also in charge of moving the animal around.
3) The digestive system of the jellies
The plankton ended up inside the mouth of that jellyfish, it’s time for the digestion system to take over. Something they have in common with Sea Anemones.
As soon as the food enters through the mouth of the jellyfish it ends up in the stomach. That’s how simple this system is.
The digestive system offered by jellyfish is so simple that it doesn’t even have a liver, pancreas, or intestines!
So how does it digest the food?
It uses it’s so-called “coelenteron”, which is doing the same thing as your stomach and intestines. Here we find a lot of enzymes that will help it digest the food. The food is digested through the cells inside the stomach and the rest is being spat out again.
The jellies have not blood or vessels so there’s no real circulation system in place.
4) There’s no butt!
As a jellyfish eat there will be a waste of course.
But another fun fact about those jellies is that they do not have an anus. So the waste from the food will have to get out the same way it came in: Through the mouth!
As water runs in and out of the Jellyfish, it will take out the “garbage” (feces). Now there’s space for the next piece of food that comes along and gets transported into the mouth. The water circulates food and oxygen around inside the Jellyfish to give it what it needs to live.
5) They eat their food fast
They always eat the food super fast because they can’t really swim around with stuff inside them. But This also makes sense because they only eat tiny stuff so there’s not a whole lot to digest anyway.
WHAT do Jellyfish Eat?
This depends on the size of jellyfish.
So let’s start by dividing all the jellies into bigger and smaller Jellyfish. This is a broad categorization but one we will make in order to be able to explain everything in simple terms.
What do the SMALL jellies eat?
The smaller jellies are what we call “Carnivorous”.
That means, that they feed on all the different tiny organisms you will find floating around in the sea.
In areas with a lot of jellies, it can be a problem for the smaller fish because the jellies will eat everything that’s small and has nutrition.
So smaller fish has to go elsewhere to find food if there are too many jellies. That’s not a big problem though, as the fish are much smarter and can quickly figure this out. The Jellies will not follow after them because they are not that smart. They will just float around in a big fog of unconsciousness, so to speak.
And lots of jellyfish are swimming together it’s called a bloom. A Bloom can contain millions of jellyfish and they often cause problems for fish and fishermen. When that happens, you just have to wait till the current carries them in another direction.
What do the BIG jellies eat?
Some of the bigger jellies can actively capture and kill bigger organisms with their poisonous sting, as we mentioned above. It can shoot out this sting whenever an animal will trigger it by touching the extremely long tentacles it has floating around itself.
Once it happens to capture and kill an animal (or knock it unconscious) it will try to get in into the mouth.
The bigger jellyfish will also be able to eat other jellyfishes.
So it actually has a cannibalistic behavior. But remember it doesn’t have a brain so it’s not really “aware” of what’s coming into the mouth. It has to feed on whatever floats by.
It will basically eat anything that comes by, so even though it has a super-simple digestion system, it’s able to eat a big variety of food!
Who eats the jellies?
The Jellys themselves are also constantly in danger of being eaten by animals such as:
As we just mentioned some jellies are also considered a delicate meal for humans.
The so-called “Cannonball Jellyfish” is sometimes served at expensive restaurants. Especially in Asia where they are part of the booming seafood business.
Jellies are also of great export value for the U.S state of Georgia.
They are being sold to seafood distributors across Japan, China, and Thailand where they will end up on the dining table. They are being dried and packaged before they got shipped.
According to Wikipedia, Mexico harvested 20,000 tons of jellyfish (equivalent to US$3.5 million) over a period of only three months.
Related questions
How many Jellyfish types are there? There are more than 200 known species of jellyfish. Some are bigger and some are small. Most of them are not dangerous to humans but they can still cause irritation if you touch the tentacles.