What do animals eat.
Animals like any living thing, need food to live. Different animals have different requirements for food.
Classification of animals based on their food habit
We can classify animals into three groups according to what they eat.
- Herbivores
- Carnivores
- Omnivores
Herbivores
Herbivores are those animals that eat only plants and plant material. They eat grass, leaves, fruits, etc.
Examples :
Elephants, cows, deer, goats, etc., are herbivores.
The teeth of a herbivore can bite and chew the grass or leaves.
Squirrels, rabbits, etc., have razor sharp front teeth to crack open nuts and fruits.
Birds like parrots use their beaks to open nuts.
Carnivores
Carnivores are those animals that eat other animals as food. Lions, tigers, cats, owls, etc. are carnivores. They have sharp canine teeth to tear the flesh. They have claws on the paws to hold their prey.
Omnivores
There are some animals that eat both animals and plants. They are called as omnivores. Humans, dogs, pigs, bears, etc., are omnivores.
Apart from the above three categories, we see some animals that have the following food habits.
Scavengers
Scavengers are the animals that feed on the flesh of the decaying animals and plants. Vultures are the only complete scavengers. They feed only on dead and decaying animals. Animals like crows, sharks or bears scavenge only if necessity. Scavenging is done by insects like termites, beetles, etc.
Parasites
All the above animals must eat and digest their food. But some animals do not have to digest food at all. They animals are called the parasites.
Lice (plural of a louse) that live on the human head, or the fleas and ticks on your pets, are parasites. They live by sucking blood of living creatures.
Worms like the tapeworm, which enter our intestines, come under parasites.