How are some of the largest land animals like Rhinos, Elephants and Giraffes are herbivores? How do they get so big from eating grass, don’t they ever get hungry?

Question

I don’t get how something so big just eats grass like a cow. If we eat vegetables all day we won’t get fat or super big so how are they able to do it? I feel like eating grass all day is not very filling.

In: Biology

Answer 1

In addition to the other answers, there’s the bigger ecological one. EVERY animal just eats grass and plants. Herbivores eat it directly, carnivores eat it after it’s been processed through herbivores. But turning grass into flesh is pretty inefficient – even with modern agriculture it takes about 10 calories of grain to make one calorie of meat.

So carnivores are at a calorie disadvantage, so to speak, which is why they have much smaller populations and often smaller bodies as well.