Eli5: How are elephants able to consume enough calories when all they eat is leaves and vegetables and those have very few calories?

Question

Eli5: How are elephants able to consume enough calories when all they eat is leaves and vegetables and those have very few calories?

In: 60

Answer 1

Bacteria and protozoa in the herbivores guts will ferment their plant diet into more usable, higher quality nutrients, basically volatile fatty acids that they can use as energy source

Elephants specifically have a simple stomach, like horses, so they have a very long intestine with a well developed cecum in their large intestines, where this fermentation process will take place. Cows, goats, sheep, llamas, camels, giraffes for example are ruminants, they have a multi chambered stomach, fermentation by bacteria and protozoa occurs in this special organ