Question

I want you to pick three specific living organisms - a carnivore, a ruminator (fore-gut fermenter) and a hindgut fermenter. For each what is its diet, how are its teeth adapted to its diet, how does it process (digest) its food, and how does it get around (is it digitigrade, unguligrade, plantigrade). Please post a photo!

Answer 1

1. Carnivore : Lion

Diet: As lions are carnivores, they are animals that only eat meat. Types of prey they catch include birds, hares, buffaloes, turtles, wild dogs, antelopes, mice, lizards, wild hogs, cheetahs,baby elephants , leopards, crocodiles, rhinoceros, hippopotamuses, giraffes etc.

Teeth adapted to diet :Lions have pointed incisors for nibbling meat from bones. They also have large pointed canines to kill prey by piercing the veins in the neck. On the other hand premolar and molars are flattened and works like scissors to slice flesh and crush bones.

digestion of food: As lions are obligate carnivores, they do not need carbohydrates.Hence no salivary amylase is produced .Their stomach consists of four functionally distinct zones; the oesophageal region, with bacterial growth but no secretions from glands. The cardiac region has alkaline mucus secreting glands. The Fundus gland and pyloric regions produce other gastric secetions, including hydrochloric acid. HCl provides low pH to kill any bacteria consumed, and cause hydrolysis of proteins and polysaccharides .The low pH activates proenzyme pepsinogen, forming pepsin, to digest protein. The broken down food exits via the pyloric region and enters the small intestine .

getting around : Digitigrades

2. Ruminant : Cow

Diet:  Cows eat grass and hay. Cows eat (approximate dry matter ) 4 to 5 tons of forage per year.

Teeth adapted to diet :Cows have teeth only on their lower jaws which are flat-topped teeth . On the upper jaw, they have only a hard pad of skin. Cows grind grass by keeping it between its bottom teeth and the hard pad of skin making the grass forming a soft ball to swallow easily.

digestion of food: Cows are ruminant animals thus they have a rumen from which food is regurgitated to chew the food better. Ruminant stomachs have four compartments: the rumen, the reticulum, the omasum and the abomasum.The rumen microbes helps in fermentation of the feed and form fatty acids, which are the cow’s main energy source. In calves, with the help of esophageal grooves milk is allowed to bypass the rumen and directly enter the abomasum. Rumen development occurs after a change in diet and growth of microbes.

getting around : Unguligrade

3. Rabbit

Diet: Rabbits eat grasses,weeds,wildflowers, clover, flower and vegetable plants during summer. During  cold, they eat twigs, bark,buds, conifer needles, remaining greens.

Teeth adapted to diet :Rabbits have incisors with sharp edges, which help to slice like scissors through the rough, fibrous vegetation and fruits they eat. The teeth on their cheeks help them chew their food further into smaller pieces thus making them easy to swallow.

Digestion of food: The rabbit digestive tract is similar to that of a horse. Both are “hind-gut fermenters.The initial stages of rabbit digestion are also similar to mammals.Food travels from the mouth, to the oesophagus, stomach, and on to the small intestine. In Tte small intestine is absorbtion of nutrients take place. Enzymes break the food down into individual nutrients which get absorbed into the blood stream. In rabbits the undigested fibre gets sorteds into two types, digestible and indigestible.With nutrients locked inside it, digestable fibres diverts into the caecum for processing. that functions much like the rumen of a cow, but is present at the end of digestive track. The cecum break down and digest the various fibers.The left over indigestible fibre with no useable nutrients help carry the food through the digestive system.

getting around : plantigrade

Thankyou