How Do enormous animals like giraffes/elephants/ect meet basic nutrition needs when they dont have a varied diet?
In: Biology
Adding to the other comments: they get microbes to do the work for them. Pretty much any large herbivore is going to have some part of their digestive tract devoted to fermentation. Bacteria and protozoa use the plant material to produce energy for themselves. As they grow they produce fats, proteins, carbohydrates, etc – either released into the gut or incorporated into their own (the microbes’) cells. Then the animal digests the microbes and gets the nutrients it needs. So instead of needing to eat a varied diet of different foods to get different nutrients, the herbivore can eat the same thing for a long time because it is growing a varied population of microbes inside its digestive tract.
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