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Omnivore
An omnivore () is an animal that regularly consumes significant quantities of both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nutrients and energy of the sources absorbed. Often, they have the ability to incorporate food sources such as algae, fungi, and bacteria into their diet. Omnivores come from diverse backgrounds that often independently evolved sophisticated consumption capabilities. For instance, dogs evolved from primarily carnivorous organisms (Carnivora) while pigs evolved from primarily herbivorous organisms (Artiodactyla). Despite this, physical characteristics such as tooth morphology may be reliable indicators of diet in mammals, with such morphological adaptation having been observed in bears. The variety of different animals that are classified as omnivores can be placed into further sub-categories depending on their feeding behaviors. Frug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Veganism
Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A person who practices veganism is known as a vegan. The foundations of veganism include ethical, moral, environmental, health and humanitarian arguments. Strict veganism excludes all forms of #Animal use, animal use, whether in agriculture for labour or food (e.g., meat, fish and other animal seafood, eggs, dairy products such as milk or cheese, and honey), in clothing and industry (e.g., leather, wool, fur, and some cosmetics), in entertainment (e.g., zoos, exotic pets, and circuses), or in services (e.g., guide dogs, police dogs, hunting dogs, working animals, and animal testing, including medical experimentation and the use of pharmaceuticals derived from or tested on animals). A person who practices veganism may do so for personal health benefits or to reduce animal deaths, minimize ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carnivore
A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ... whose nutrition and energy requirements are met by eating, consumption of animal tissue (biology), tissues (mainly muscle, adipose tissue, fat and other soft tissues) as food, whether through predation or scavenger, scavenging. Nomenclature Mammal order The technical term for mammals in the order (biology), order Carnivora is ''carnivoran'', and they are so-named because most member species in the group have a carnivorous diet, but the similarity of the name of the order and the name of the diet causes confusion. Many but not all carnivorans are meat eaters; a few, such as the fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbivore
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet. These more broadly also encompass animals that eat non-vascular autotrophs such as mosses, algae and lichens, but do not include those feeding on decomposed plant matters (i.e. detritivores) or macrofungi (i.e. fungivores). As a result of their plant-based diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouth structures ( jaws or mouthparts) well adapted to mechanically break down plant materials, and their digestive systems have special enzymes (e.g. amylase and cellulase) to digest polysaccharides. Grazing herbivores such as horses and cattles have wide flat- crowned teeth that are better adapted for grinding grass, tree bark and other tougher lignin-containing materials, and many of them evolved rumination or cecotropic behaviors to better extract nutrients from plants. A larg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animal
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Biology, biological Kingdom (biology), kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, have myocytes and are motility, able to move, can reproduce sexually, and grow from a hollow sphere of Cell (biology), cells, the blastula, during embryonic development. Animals form a clade, meaning that they arose from a single common ancestor. Over 1.5 million extant taxon, living animal species have been species description, described, of which around 1.05 million are insects, over 85,000 are molluscs, and around 65,000 are vertebrates. It has been estimated there are as many as 7.77 million animal species on Earth. Animal body lengths range from to . They have complex ecologies and biological interaction, interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs. The scientific study of animals is known as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diet (nutrition)
In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. The word diet often implies the use of specific intake of nutrition for #Health, health or #Weight management, weight-management reasons (with the two often being related). Although humans are omnivores, each culture and each person holds some food preferences or some food taboos. This may be due to personal tastes or ethical reasons. Individual dietary choices may be more or less healthy. Complete nutrition requires ingestion and absorption of vitamins, Dietary mineral, minerals, essential amino acids from protein and essential fatty acids from fat-containing food, also food energy in the form of carbohydrate, protein, and fat. Dietary habits and choices play a significant role in the quality of life, health and longevity. Health A healthy diet can improve and maintain health, which can include aspects of mental and physical health. Specific diets, such as the DASH diet, can be used in treatment ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Even-toed Ungulate
Artiodactyls are placental mammals belonging to the order Artiodactyla ( , ). Typically, they are ungulates which bear weight equally on two (an even number) of their five toes (the third and fourth, often in the form of a hoof). The other three toes are either present, absent, vestigial, or pointing posteriorly. By contrast, most perissodactyls bear weight on an odd number of the five toes. Another difference between the two orders is that many artiodactyls (except for Suina) digest plant cellulose in one or more stomach chambers rather than in their intestine (as perissodactyls do). Molecular biology, along with new fossil discoveries, has found that cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) fall within this taxonomic branch, being most closely related to hippopotamuses. Some modern taxonomists thus apply the name Cetartiodactyla () to this group, while others opt to include cetaceans within the existing name of Artiodactyla. Some researchers use "even-toed ungulates" to e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swallow
The swallows, martins, and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae are a family of passerine songbirds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The term "swallow" is used as the common name for '' Hirundo rustica'' in the UK and Ireland. Around 90 species of Hirundinidae are known, divided into 21 genera, with the greatest diversity found in Africa, which is also thought to be where they evolved as hole-nesters. They also occur on a number of oceanic islands. A number of European and North American species are long-distance migrants; by contrast, the West and South African swallows are nonmigratory. This family comprises two subfamilies: Pseudochelidoninae (the river martins of the genus ''Pseudochelidon'') and Hirundininae (all other swallows, martins, and saw-wings). In the Old World, the name "martin" tends to be used for the squarer-tailed species, and the name "swallow" for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Insectivore
file:Common brown robberfly with prey.jpg, A Asilidae, robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivore, carnivorous animal or plant which eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the Entomophagy in humans, human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores were amphibians. When they evolved 400 million years ago, the first amphibians were piscivores, with numerous sharp conical teeth, much like a modern crocodile. The same tooth arrangement is however also suited for eating animals with exoskeletons, thus the ability to eat insects can stem from piscivory. At one time, insectivorous mammals were scientific classification, scientifically classified in an order (biology), order called Insectivora. This order is now abandoned, as not all insectivorous mammals are closely related. Most of the Insectivora taxa have been reclassified; those that have not yet been reclassified and found to be truly related to each ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finch
The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. Finches generally have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where they are usually resident and do not migrate. They have a worldwide native distribution except for Australia and the polar regions. The family Fringillidae contains more than two hundred species divided into fifty genera. It includes the canaries, siskins, redpolls, serins, grosbeaks and euphonias, as well as the morphologically divergent Hawaiian honeycreepers. Many birds in other families are also commonly called "finches". These groups include the estrildid finches ( Estrildidae) of the Old World tropics and Australia; some members of the Old World bunting family ( Emberizidae) and the New World sparrow family ( Passerellidae); and the Darwin's finches of the Galapagos islands, now considered members of the tanager family (Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pink Fairy Armadillo
The pink fairy armadillo (''Chlamyphorus truncatus'') is the smallest species of armadillo, first described by Richard Harlan in 1825. The pink fairy armadillo is long, and typically weighs about . This solitary, desert-adapted animal is endemic to the deserts and scrub lands of central Argentina. The pink fairy armadillo is closely related to the only other fairy armadillo, the greater fairy armadillo. Pink fairy armadillos have small eyes, silky yellowish white fur, and flexible dorsal shells that are attached to their bodies solely by thin dorsal membranes. Their spatula-shaped tails protrude from vertical plates at the blunt rear of their shells. They exhibit nocturnal and solitary habits and feed themselves largely on insects, worms, snails, and various plant parts. The pink fairy armadillo has a unique ability to bury itself in a matter of seconds, using its specialized claws to dig into sandy or loamy soils. This behavior helps protect the armadillo from predators and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seed Predation
Seed predation, often referred to as granivory, is a type of plant-animal interaction in which granivores (seed predators) feed on the seeds of plants as a main or exclusive food source,Hulme, P.E. and Benkman, C.W. (2002) "Granivory", pp. 132–154 in ''Plant animal Interactions: An Evolutionary Approach'', ed. C.M. Herrera and O. Pellmyr. Oxford: Blackwell. . in many cases leaving the seeds damaged and not viable. Granivores are found across many families of vertebrates (especially mammals and birds) as well as invertebrates (mainly insects); thus, seed predation occurs in virtually all terrestrial ecosystems. Seed predation is commonly divided into two distinctive temporal categories, pre-dispersal and post-dispersal predation, which affect the fitness of the parental plant and the dispersed offspring (the seed), respectively. Mitigating pre- and post-dispersal predation may involve different strategies. To counter seed predation, plants have evolved both physical defenses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
