for the vegetarians

[cheesehead]

... okay -- "brain food", and all that ...

BTW, just last night I saw a "Nature" episode about animals' efforts to get necessary minerals in their diets. One example was deer that were introduced to some desolate western Orkneys island, where the usual sources of calcium for deer are absent. (I.e., the vegetation was calcium-poor.)

Anyway, some guy using an infrared camera videoed one of the deer, at night, approaching a seabird nest where a fledgling had died (the parents routinely set out on migration when the fledglings are able to fly, but haven't yet done so). The deer picked up the bird body and very carefully chewed it for an hour or so before dropping it. When the cameraman went to the bird body, he found that the deer had chewed out the bones from the carcass, but left the meat, feathers, skin and all else. Even chewed away the bird's leg bones but left the feet attached to the skin -- "moderation", after all.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by xilman

False in general. Omnivores and carnivores outnumber herbivores amongst relatively intelligent animals. Parrots are the only exclusively herbivores I can think of, off-hand.

Gorrillas are largely, if not exclusively herbivores.

I knew there had to be some other species.

Paul

[akruppa]

Regarding not being able to be picky about the occasional algae among the krill, or the mosquito sitting on a leaf: it appears that some fish that are considered strictly or mostly carnivorous do, in fact, rely on getting some half-digested vegetable food from the stomachs of their prey. They require some nutients from vegetable food but lack the enzymes to digest them, so they let someone else do the tricky part of the digestion, and then eat them!

I don't have hard evidence to back this up, i.e. I don't know which species in particular would suffer from malnutrition if they didn't get half-digested vegetable food. It's a story I heard on some boards on aquaristics, but it seemed not too unplausible to me. But it makes for a nice anecdote that the line between carnivorous and herbivorous diet is a bit fuzzy. Another case is that wolves are pretty much the archetype of a carnivorous animal, yet they are quite fond of eating grapes, for example.

Alex

[Xyzzy]

Not sure if it matters or not, but the gerbils like chicken and grapes.

And sunflower seeds.

[mfgoode]

I quote from my post number 9

Originally Posted by Mally

Also it should be remembered that a living creature if really hungry will eat anything and not differentiate for a food preference. That explains the parrot with a drumstick Uncwilly

Mally