Question

what are ruminants and how do they benefit from bacteria

Answer 1

Ruminants are animals with four parts or compartments of stomach, the rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum. They chew their food again after swallowing, known as chewing the cud, hence the name ruminant.

The ruminants on encountering food like hay and long polymeric substances chew the food roughly along with copious amounts of saliva. From here the food passes into the first stomach compartment known as rumen. Here the rumen bacteria provides the benefits to the ruminants by breaking down the complex structures like cellulose which the ruminants cannot digest into simple sugars and provides energy, also the microbes of the rumen particularly the bacteria use these for their own metabolism and secretes fatty acids. These fatty acids are absorbed by the rumen wall and is used for the ruminant metabolism. Thus the rumen bacteria help in digestion and in providing nourishment to the ruminants. very large pieces are sent to the reticulum where it is regurgitated into the ruminants mouth to be re-chewed and again it enters the rumen where now these are digested and passed on to the next compartment called omasum.