Heterotrophic Nutrition

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Slide 51

Herbivorous

Definitions of Herbivorous on the Web:

plant-eating. www.mountedsquadhorses.com/glossary.html

describes an organism that eats plant matter www.bigelow.org/edhab/glossary.html

Feeding primarily on vegetation. www.uvm.edu/~jdecher/GoT.html

[her-BIV-or-us] feeding on plants (see also phytophagous and carnivorous). members.aol.com/YESedu/glossary.html

Feeding on plants. For example, animals such as moose and snowshoe hares are herbivorous. www.hubbardbrook.org/education/Glossary/Glossary.htm

Slide 52

Herbivorous Strategies

Cranial fermentors or ruminants have a large, multicompartmented section of the digestive tract between the esophagus and true stomach. These forestomachs house a very complex ecosystem that supports fermentation. Examples of ruminants are cattle, sheep and deer.

Caudal fermentors, also known as cecal digestors, are similar to dogs and humans through the stomach and small intestine, but their large intestine, where fermentation occurs, is complex and exceptionally large. Examples of cecal digestors include horses and rabbits.

Slide 53

Herbivorous

Ruminants can utilize dietary starch, but very little of it is absorbed as glucose.

Rather, starch and other soluble carbohydrates are fermented to volatile fatty acids in the forestomachs.

In contrast, starch fed to a horse is digested to glucose by amylase and maltase in the small intestine, and that glucose is absorbed across the epithelium into blood.

Slide 54

Herbivorous