An plant eater is an organism that mostly feeds on plants. Herbivores range in size from tiny insects such every bit aphids to large, lumbering elephants.

Herbivores are a major part of the food web, a description of which organisms eat other organisms in the wild. Organisms in the food web are grouped into trophic, or nutritional, levels. There are three trophic levels. Autotrophs, organisms that produce their own nutrient, are the first trophic level. These include plants and algae. Herbivores, which eat autotrophs, are the second trophic level. Carnivores, organisms that consume animals, and omnivores, organisms that eat both plants and animals, are the third trophic level.


Autotrophs are called producers, considering they produce their own nutrient. Herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores are consumers. Herbivores are primary consumers. Carnivores and omnivores are secondary consumers.

Herbivores oftentimes have physical features that help them eat tough, fiberous institute thing. Unlike herbivores and other consumers, autotrophs have tough jail cell walls throughout their physical structure. Cell walls can brand plant material difficult to digest.

Many herbivorous mammals have wide molars. These large teeth aid them grind up leaves and grasses. Cannibal mammals, on the other mitt, unremarkably have long, precipitous teeth that help them take hold of prey and rip it apart.

A group of herbivores chosen ruminants have specialized stomachs. For the digestion of constitute matter, ruminant stomachs have more than one chamber. When a ruminant chews up and swallows grass, leaves, and other material, it goes into the kickoff sleeping room of its stomach, where it sits and softens. At that place, specialized bacteria break downwardly the food. When the material is soft enough, the animal regurgitates the food and chews it again. This helps intermission down the found matter. This partially digested food is chosen cud. The animal and then swallows the cud, and information technology goes into a second sleeping room of the stomach. Chemicals in the 2d bedchamber assimilate the plant textile further, and it goes into the third sleeping accommodation. Finally, the digested food goes to the fourth chamber, which is like to a human tummy. Sheep, deer, giraffes, camels, and cattle are all ruminants.

Picky Eaters

Some herbivores eat any plant affair they can find. Elephants, for example, eat bawl, leaves, small branches, roots, grasses, and fruit. Black rhinoceroses as well eat a diverseness of fruits, branches, and leaves.

Other herbivores eat simply one function of a plant. An creature that specializes in eating fruit is called a frugivore. Oilbirds, which live in northern S America, are frugivores. They eat zip but the fruit of palms and laurels. The koala, which is native to Australia, eats little as well the leaves of eucalyptus trees. An brute that eats the leaves and shoots of copse is called a folivore. Pandas, which feed almost exclusively on bamboo, are folivores. Termites are insects that feed mostly on wood. Woods-eaters are called xylophages.

Many insects are herbivores. Some, such equally grasshoppers, volition swallow every part of a plant. Others specialize in certain parts of the establish. Aphids potable sap, a viscid fluid that carries nutrients through the constitute. Caterpillars swallow leaves. The larvae, or young wormlike forms, of root weevils feed on roots. Asian long-horned beetles tunnel deep into the heart of a tree and eat the forest there. Honeybees feed on nectar and pollen from flowers.

Some herbivores consume only dead plant material. These organisms are chosen detritivores. Detritivores also consume other dead organic cloth, such as decaying animals, fungi, and algae. Detritivores such as earthworms, bacteria, and fungi are an important part of the food chain. They break down the dead organic cloth and recycle nutrients back into the ecosystem. Detritivores tin survive in many places. Earthworms and mushrooms alive in the soil. In that location are also detritivore bacteria at the bottom of the body of water.

Plants that are parasites can still be considered herbivores. A parasite is an organism that lives on or in some other organism and gets its nutrients from it. Parasitic plants get their nutrients from other plants, called host plants. Dodder, native to tropical and temperate climates effectually the globe, is a parasitic vine that wraps around a host plant. Dodder has rootlike parts called haustoria that adhere to the host institute, then it can feed on its nutrients. Eventually, the parasitic dodder feeds on all the nutrients of the host plant, and the host plant dies. The dodder vines then move on to another plant.

Herbivores in the Food Chain

Many herbivores spend a large role of their life eating. Elephants need to swallow about 130 kilograms (300 pounds) of food a day. It takes a long time to eat that much leaves and grass, so elephants sometimes eat for 18 hours a day.

Herbivores depend on plants for their survival. If the plant population declines, herbivores cannot get enough food. Beavers, for case, feed on copse and plants that live near h2o. If the trees are removed to build houses and roads, the beaver population cannot survive.

Similarly, many carnivores need herbivores to survive. Herbivorous zebras and gazelles once traveled in great herds across the savannas of Africa. Simply these herds accept shrunk and are now by and large confined to parks and wildlife reserves. Every bit the number of these herbivores declines, carnivores such equally African wild dogs, which prey on them, besides decline. Scientists approximate that simply three,000 to v,500 African wild dogs remain in the wild.

In some places, the disappearance of large carnivores has led to an overpopulation of herbivores. Wolves and cougars are traditional predators, or hunters, of white-tailed deer, which are herbivores. Hunting and expanding human settlements accept practically eliminated these predators from the northeastern United States. Without its natural predators, the population of white-tailed deer has skyrocketed. In some areas, there are so many deer that they cannot find enough nutrient. They now frequently stray into towns and suburbs in search of nutrient.

herbivore

Gorillas are a specialized type of plant eater chosen a folivore.

Watch Those Teeth
Many herbivores have large, deadening, apartment teeth. These teeth are excellent for chewing and breaking down tough plant material. Carnivores have precipitous, narrow teeth that are better for biting and trigger-happy mankind.

However, some herbivores also have strong, precipitous teeth. These teeth, such every bit those on hippopotamuses and gorillas, are not adapted for eating. They have developed for confrontations with other animalsfighting, not feeding.

African wild canis familiaris

Noun

medium-sized animal (mammal) native to Africa.

algae

Plural Noun

(atypical: alga) diverse group of aquatic organisms, the largest of which are seaweeds.

aphid

Noun

tiny insect that eats the sap of plants.

Asian long-horned protrude

Noun

big insect that feeds on the interior woods of trees, native to eastern Asia.

Noun

organism that tin can produce its own nutrient and nutrients from chemicals in the atmosphere, unremarkably through photosynthesis or chemosynthesis.

Plural Noun

(singular: bacterium) single-celled organisms found in every ecosystem on Globe.

Substantive

organism that eats meat.

caterpillar

Substantive

larva of a butterfly or moth.

prison cell wall

Noun

tough, rigid, and not-living barrier surrounding the soft cells of about autotrophs, such as plants.

chamber

Noun

sealed compartment.

climate

Substantive

all weather condition conditions for a given location over a period of fourth dimension.

confine

Verb

to limit or enclose.

consumer

Noun

organism on the food chain that depends on autotrophs (producers) or other consumers for nutrient, nutrition, and energy.

cougar

Noun

large cat native to the Americas. Likewise called puma, mountain lion, and panther.

cud

Noun

partly digested food that is regurgitated by ruminants, to chew and eat once again.

detritivore

Noun

organism that consumes expressionless establish material.

assimilate

Verb

to convert food into nutrients that can be captivated.

dodder

Substantive

parasitic constitute with long, vine-like stems that have over the host plant and steal its nutrients.

earthworm

Substantive

worm that lives in soil or globe.

Noun

customs and interactions of living and nonliving things in an area.

elephant

Substantive

big mammal with a long trunk, native to Africa and Asia.

eliminate

Verb

to remove.

eucalyptus

Substantive

tree native to Oceania.

fiber

Noun

long, thin, threadlike material produced by plants that aids digestive move when consumed.

folivore

Substantive

herbivore that eats mainly leaves.

Substantive

all related food chains in an ecosystem. Too called a food bicycle.

frugivore

Noun

herbivore that eats mainly fruits.

fungi

Plural Noun

(singular: fungus) organisms that survive by decomposing and absorbing nutrients in organic material such as soil or dead organisms.

gazelle

Noun

small antelope native to Africa and Asia.

grasshopper

Noun

insect with big hind legs used for jumping.

haustoria

Plural Noun

(haustorium) thin, tubular feeding organs of some parasites.

Noun

organism that eats mainly plants and other producers.

herd

Substantive

group of animals.

honeybee

Noun

insect that, in a hive with other honeybees, produces honey.

host

Substantive

organism that is home to a parasite.

insect

Noun

type of animate being that breathes air and has a body divided into iii segments, with six legs and usually wings.

koala

Substantive

medium-sized fauna (marsupial) that lives almost entirely in eucalyptus trees, native to Commonwealth of australia.

larva

Substantive

a new or immature insect or other type of invertebrate.

laurel

Noun

evergreen tree with large leaves, ofttimes used as a spice chosen bay.

molar

Noun

large, flat tooth used for chewing and grinding.

nectar

Noun

sweet plant material that attracts pollinators.

Noun

substance an organism needs for free energy, growth, and life.

oilbird

Noun

medium-sized, nocturnal bird native to South America.

Noun

organism that eats a diversity of organisms, including plants, animals, and fungi.

organism

Noun

living or in one case-living matter.

overpopulation

Substantive

situation where the amount of organisms in an expanse is as well large for the ecosystem to support.

palm

Noun

type of tree with a alpine trunk, no branches, and a leafy crown.

parasite

Noun

organism that lives and feeds on another organism.

park

Noun

area of land set aside for recreational use.

plant

Substantive

organism that produces its own food through photosynthesis and whose cells accept walls.

pollen

Noun

powdery cloth produced by plants, each grain of which contains a male gamete capable of fertilizing a female ovule.

predator

Noun

fauna that hunts other animals for food.

prey

Substantive

animal that is hunted and eaten by other animals.

primary consumer

Noun

organism that eats producers; herbivores.

producer

Noun

organism on the food chain that can produce its own free energy and nutrients. Also chosen an autotroph.

regurgitate

Verb

to vomit or throw up undigested or partly digested food.

root

Noun

part of a plant that secures it in the soil, obtains water and nutrients, and ofttimes stores food made by leaves.

root weevil

Noun

small insect that feeds on the roots of a plant.

ruminant

Substantive

type of herbivorous animal (mammal) with a specialized stomach for digesting plant textile.

sap

Substantive

fluid that distributes nutrients throughout a found.

savanna

Noun

type of tropical grassland with scattered copse.

secondary consumer

Noun

organism that eats meat.

skyrocket

Verb

to increment rapidly.

soil

Substantive

top layer of the Globe's surface where plants can grow.

tum

Noun

organ in animals that helps digest food.

suburb

Noun

geographic area, by and large residential, just outside the borders of an urban area.

temperate

Adjective

moderate.

termite

Noun

small insect that feeds on forest.

trophic level

Noun

one of iii positions on the food chain: autotrophs (first), herbivores (2d), and carnivores and omnivores (3rd).

tropical

Adjective

existing in the tropics, the latitudes between the Tropic of Cancer in the north and the Tropic of Capricorn in the south.

vine

Substantive

constitute with a long, narrow stem that tin can wrap around an object or trail along the ground.

white-tailed deer

Noun

medium-sized deer (mammal) native to the Americas.

biological reserve

Noun

area set aside and protected by the government or other organization to maintain wildlife habitat. Likewise called a nature preserve.

wolf

Noun

mammal related to the domestic dog.

xylophage

Noun

organism that consumes wood.

zebra

Noun

mammal, related to a horse, native to Africa.