All the variety of ways to obtain food can be reduced to several types.
The forms of self-feeding are quite varied. A number of animals swallow sand, silt, and soil, which then pass through the intestines. Nutrients are absorbed by the body, and undigested residues (mainly minerals) are thrown out through the anus. This is how well-known earthworms feed, as well as some marine animals - sea cucumbers or sea cucumbers.
Many animals living in water are filter feeders based on their feeding habits. They have various devices to create a flow of water towards the mouth opening. With water they also get food, of course, small in size. An example of a filter feeder is the slipper ciliate. Bivalves (pearl oysters, toothless mollusks) also feed on the principle of filtration. On the sides of the mouth they have oral lobes covered with cilia, which push nutrient particles to the mouth opening. Sponges, many crustaceans and annelids are also similar filter feeders. It should be noted that filter-feeding animals play a large positive role in water bodies. They are a powerful factor in the natural purification of water bodies.
It is true that plants have also developed peculiar adaptations in order to exploit animals and feed on them. Take, for example, plants that are used for cross-pollination by bees, butterflies, birds (hummingbirds, sunbirds), bats, bathing from them with nectar, pollen, and sometimes even flower petals. Often an animal acts as a seed distributor and feeds on the fruits of these plants. Plants have also developed, thanks to evolution, protective devices directed against their consumers: spines, silicon inclusions in the leaves that destroy the teeth of ruminants, unpleasant odors, toxic substances, etc..
Carnivores are no less flexible in their activities and adaptations. Almost every animal has one or more predators. Some of them are highly specialized, such as snakes that feed on bird eggs. Others eat only selected parts of their victims. Many animals suck blood and soft fabrics victims.
It is not at all uncommon for animals to alternate phases of their life cycle, with each stage having a special type of food. For example, frog tadpoles are herbivores, while adults are carnivores. This distribution of food not only reduces the tension of competition between adult animals and their descendants, but also contributes to the optimal selection of food necessary for the development and growth of the body.
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IN competition Foraging for food over many millions of years, animals have developed certain eating habits and demonstrated an amazing ability to adapt in the process of evolution. This includes changes in body structure necessary for obtaining and consuming food, and important changes in behavior.
Some animals were able to change their habitat and adapt to different food, others learned faster and more the easy way get food.
There are truly wonderful methods of hunting, but the most amazing is the use of tools by animals to obtain food. For a very long time it was believed that only humans were capable of this, but it turned out that many animals could do this.
Thousands of years ago, several finches arrived on the distant Galapagos Islands, which became the ancestors of a number of new specialized species of these birds. Being originally granivores, they adapted to environment, having learned, among other things, to use food different from that to which they were accustomed on the mainland. The photo shows a woodpecker finch feeding on insects. He removes them from rotten wood using tools such as cactus thorns, twigs or wood chips.
Catching butterflies
Not all spiders weave webs from their webs and wait for prey. Some actively hunt with just one sticky thread. Among these most dexterous hunters are spiders, which could be called “angler fish”. They are distributed everywhere, but the most famous species live in Australia. This creamy-red robber sits on a plant and drops a thread with a few drops of sticky substance from it, like a fishing rod. As soon as the spider notices a butterfly or other potential victim, it begins to perform intensive movements with its improvised “fishing rod”, hoping to hook the prey. If he succeeds, the victim hangs, glued to the sticky drop. The spider then pulls up the thread and eats the prey. It is believed that the “fishing rod” emits a smell that female butterflies use to attract males.
Splasher fish
The splash fish lives in mangrove swamps on the coasts of Southeast Asia. Mangroves are a maze of tree roots that are flooded with water twice a day. Countless people live here different types animals, especially insects, taking refuge in the green trees during high tide. Bryzgun “has developed a special technique with which he can collect insects from trees. Releasing a stream of water from a mouth adapted for this purpose, he shoots it with great accuracy. Its gray-green color and flat back allow it to camouflage itself well in mangroves, making it very difficult for insects to notice.
Sea otter sea otter
Sea otters (sea otters) living off the Pacific coast of North America are also known for their ability to use tools. To open the shells of large mollusks or break the shell sea urchins, the sea otter hits them against a flat stone, which, floating on its back, it holds on its stomach. Some otters carry such a stone with them all the time.
black heron
The African black heron forages for food in ponds and swamps, hunting small fish, mammals and reptiles. The most interesting thing is how this little heron behaves in preparation for a successful hunt. Walking slowly through the water, the heron spreads one or both wings, creating a shaded place on the water, which allows it to better see its prey, and the fish instinctively feels more confident and less vigilant.
I'm exploring the world. Snakes, crocodiles, turtles Semenov Dmitry
Unusual ways of getting food
Some species of reptiles, during the course of evolution, “learned” to obtain food in absolutely amazing ways.
Lizards often dig animals out of the ground or sand, sensing them by smell. But it turns out that snakes can do the same thing. It’s hard to imagine – what should they actually dig for? Eyewitnesses say: with your head! The arrow-snake mentioned above, having discovered the place where the resting lizard is buried, begins to rake up the sand, throwing it away with its head (this is how a child acts with a scoop in a sandbox).
Another remarkable technique is demonstrated by the matamata turtle. As we remember, the patchy outgrowths of her skin perfectly camouflage this ambush predator. But it also captures the matamata’s gullible prey in an unusual way. Its mouth and throat are capable of expanding so quickly and to such a size that a strong current of water arises, drawing into this gap everything that happens to be near the muzzle. After this, the jaws slam shut, the water is pushed out, and everything that was in it is swallowed.
An unusual feeding method was recently discovered in the giant loggerhead sea turtle. The loggerhead almost indiscriminately eats all marine life - mollusks, crabs, worms, sea cucumbers, jellyfish. These are mainly free-swimming or seabed-based animals that turtles collect by swimming near the surface or in the water column. But it turned out that in those places where there are few animals in the water, turtles are able to dig them out from the thickness of the seabed. And they do it in a unique way. First, they build a hole with their front paws, and then, while in it, they begin to dig up the bottom layer located in front of their muzzle. The sand crumbles, and the mollusks, polychaete worms and other invertebrates hiding in it end up almost on a silver platter, right in front of the turtle. Feeding in this way, it slowly moves forward and leaves behind a trench with shells of eaten mollusks at the bottom. The length of such a trench reaches 15 m, width - 1.5 m, depth - 40 cm. It is curious that dugongs, large marine mammals, obtain food on the seabed in the same way.
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Where does everything come from?
What do we imagine when it comes to obtaining food for our little brothers? Someone silently sneaks along the pampas, eagerly looking out for defenseless artiodactyls, which, in turn, busily but discriminatingly plucking the grass, carefully examines the area for attacks by predators.
Someone sits on a pebble, watching the booger fly by with sad eyes, and when it, having decided that it has safely passed the danger zone, slows down, greedily “shoots” at it with its long tongue and, without chewing, swallows the unfortunate thing. Someone is rapidly rushing through the depths of the sea with an open mouth, into which both edible and inedible things fall, while others simply have a bowl in the corner, and where the food comes from is not important.
But in our nature there are animals whose methods of obtaining food are so original that they are worthy of a separate discussion. This article is dedicated to these animals and their funny ability to earn their daily bread.
Breathe out, muskrat!
Everyone knows the muskrat. True, for the majority, all information about this animal comes down to only the name - no matter how evil tongues swayed the poor muskrat, how many jokes were made up about it! Note to parents: this is what it means to give your offspring an unfortunate name. But we will not mock the poor muskrat, but will simply tell you how it feeds.
This animal prefers sedentary inhabitants of fresh water bodies: mollusks, insect larvae, leeches and other nasty things that you definitely won’t eat. At the same time, the muskrat does not rush fussily along the bottom of the lake, looking for prey, which itself comes to right place. How does this happen?
Throughout its adult life, the muskrat has been busy digging a dozen trenches in the bottom silt and simply traveling along them, collecting prey along the way. In summer there is a lot of food and this food literally bursts into the “trenches” in herds, attracted by the pungent smell of musk that the animal leaves on the walls. Only now, in winter, the objects of hunting become sluggish, they look for where it is easier and easier to wait out the frosts. But here again the muskrat is at its best!
In winter, before diving to the bottom, the muskrat takes in more air inside, and when it moves along its trenches, it releases bubbles in a uniform chain, and air “stuck” in the animal’s fur is added to them. The bubbles collect above a trench under the lower surface of the ice and form voids. As a result, conditions for better aeration are created under the ice, above the bottom trenches of the muskrat, which, in turn, attracts mollusks, leeches and even small fish here, promising them a supposedly comfortable wintering. Well, the muskrat can only travel regularly through its trenches and collect its next breakfast or lunch.
Ostrich Bomb
Nature endowed the African vulture with a love for “live” food, but, as if laughing, it gave it a relatively small and weak beak. The only thing the vulture could do was sadly follow the stronger scavenger birds, picking out with its fragile tools the pitiful remains of food from those places where the more respectable vultures were simply not able to stick their mighty beaks.
But the cunning bird found a way out! Ostrich eggs, which are so clearly visible from above, are suitable food for a real predator who does not want to eat scraps from other people's tables.
The idea is good, but how to break the thick shell? The ostrich egg is heavy, awkward in girth, and cannot be lifted into the air. Continue with your beak? – unreal! And then the vulture decided to learn... the art of bombing.
Having discovered the egg, the bird begins to circle over it in search of suitable stone. Having grabbed a cobblestone of news, but such that it does not fall out ahead of time, the vulture again flies to the egg, gets closer to it, takes aim as best it can, and throws a projectile at the target.
Of course, the egg does not break immediately, and the hits are not always accurate. But patience and work will grind everything down. Sooner or later, the “bombardment” does its job, and the little vulture gets a huge, fresh and tasty ostrich egg for lunch. Now the main thing is to eat it as quickly as possible, otherwise there are so many parasites in the air and on the ground.
Beaked Spearman
It is not without reason that this bird is called the fisherman king. The patience and dexterity of the kingfisher will be the envy of the most seasoned fishermen. For hours he is able to sit on a branch hanging over the water or on a reed, or even on the tip of a lonely fisherman’s fishing rod, looking for his prey in the water, and as if knowing that where there is a fishing rod, there is a baited fish. And as soon as the bird discovers a gaping fish, it immediately rushes into the water like an arrow and literally pierces its victim right through with a powerful blow of its beak.
By the way, no matter how dexterous the kingfisher is, he does not always manage to put a fish on his beak the first time. Sometimes you have to make several passes. But the problems associated with obtaining food do not end with catching fish. Now we need to somehow keep the prey on the fly. After all, firstly, the fish may turn out to be too big and will greatly outweigh the bird, pulling it towards the ground. Secondly, there are many competitors around, the same kingfishers, who never hesitate to intercept and take away prey from their fellow fish.
Such clashes are not uncommon and always end in a huge fight. To avoid conflict and save the caught fish, the kingfisher usually tries to quickly disappear from the fishing spot. Rushing like a meteor over the water, with a fish impaled on its beak, and turning its head in all directions (to notice its enemies earlier), the bird rushes into a dense thicket, and from there, so to speak, having previously “noted the trail,” to its nest. But how the kingfisher manages to fly through the dense branches of trees without slowing down its frantic speed remains a mystery.
Bear nests
Once upon a time, researchers of the Far East were literally intrigued by the huge, ridiculous nests that were found in the most unexpected places, sometimes several on one tree. Moreover, clearly no one had ever lived in these “nests” or intended to live, and why and by whom they were built remained a mystery for a long time.
Subsequently, it turned out that these structures were the work of the paws of Himalayan bears. When a bear, out of necessity, climbs to the top of a tree to feast on its fruits, it holds onto the trunk with three paws, and with the fourth it tries to reach the branch with the fruits. Having caught a branch, the bear simply breaks it off, places it next to itself and carefully picks off the fruit with its lips. So, branch by branch, at the top of the tree a “nest” is assembled.
In animals, in the process of evolution, appeared different ways mining nutrients. Many aquatic animals obtain food by filtering water and separating food suspension from it. These are so-called filters. Their food is mainly detritus, that is, the smallest remains of decomposed plants, fungi and animals, settled to the bottom or suspended in the water column along with the bacteria, protozoa and other microorganisms they contain. Filter feeders include representatives of a wide variety of taxonomic groups: sponges, bryozoans, bivalves, crustaceans, insects, and ascidians.
Filters: 1 - sponge; 2 - ascidian; 3 - toothless
Most filter feeders are attached to the substrate or are inactive. To capture more nutrients, some species set up peculiar “catching nets” (the corolla of tentacles in sea anemones, the corolla of cirrus rays in sea lilies, tufts of bristles on upper lip in mosquito larvae, etc.) and with their oscillatory movements they increase the flow of water around them. Thanks to the filtration activity of these organisms, biological purification of water occurs in nature. For example, mussels that colonize 1 m2 of the bottom can filter up to 280 m3 of water per day. Biologists explain the unique purity of Lake Baikal water by the filtration activity of epishura, an endemic crustacean of the lower crustaceans.
As a result of adaptation to one or another method of obtaining food, animals have developed special adaptive properties. For example, small mammals from the order of insectivores (hedgehog, mole, shrew, muskrat) have a long narrow muzzle. Their incisors, extended forward, are capable, like forceps, of holding small prey (insects, worms, mollusks, etc.), and their tuberculate molars with sharp apices are capable of crushing the chitinous cover of insects and the calcareous shells of mollusks. Rodents have two large incisors on the upper and lower jaws. These incisors are rootless and grow throughout life, as they are constantly worn down by hard food. Canines and cats have well-developed fangs.
