Feeding Totally Explained

Everything about Monophagous totally explained

Feeding is the process by which organisms, typically animals, obtain food. There are many types of feeding that animals exhibit, including:

filter feeding - obtaining food suspended in the water column
deposit feeding - obtaining food particles in soil
fluid feeding - obtaining food by consuming other organisms fluids
bulk feeding - obtaining food by eating pieces of other organisms or swallowing them whole
phagocytosis - engulfing food with cell membrane

Another classification refers to the food groups some animals specialize in, such as:

Carnivore - meat

Detritivore - decomposing material

Folivore - leaves

Frugivore - fruits

Granivore - seeds

Herbivore - plants

Insectivore - insects

Nectarivore - nectar

Omnivore - plants and meat

Piscivore - fishes

Sanguinivore - blood

Saprovore - dead matter

Locavore – local food

etc. (-vore from Latin vorare, meaning 'to devour') There are also several food sources which have caused the development of specialized feeding behaviors, such as:

Ophiophagy: feeding on snakes

Hematophagy: feeding on blood

Coprophagy: feeding on faeces

Cannibalism: feeding on members of the same species (anthropophagy is the proper scientific term for human cannibalism)

Trophallaxis: regurgitation of food to another animal

Paedophagy: feeding on the young of other species

Lepidophagy: of fish, feeding on the scales of other fish In many instances, the specialization of organisms in a specific type of food source has been one of the major causes of evolution of form and function, such as:

mouth parts and teeth, such as in whales, vampire bats, leeches, mosquitos, predatory animals such as felines and fishes, etc

distinct forms of beaks in birds, such as in hawks, woodpeckers, pelicans, hummingbirds, parrots, kingfishers, etc.

specialized claws and other appendages, for apprehending or killing (including fingers in primates

changes in body colour for facilitating camouflage, disguise, setting up traps for preys, etc.

changes in the digestive system, such as the system of stomachs of herbivores, commensalism and symbiosis

Further Information

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