Food is the security of biological survival. Any creature must "eat", there are no wonders in the world, and some animals have a particularly strange diet. For example, the following few.
01 Eat "wood" wood catfish
Since being first spotted in 2010 by Peruvian biologist Roberto Quesby at the confluence of the Curanha and Prus rivers, the Amazon catfish have been repeatedly seen devouring entire short logs with spoon-like teeth and attractive lips, unique body structures that can help them dig out the debris of the logs.
Donovan Germain, a biologist at the University of California in the United States, has found through research observations that the purpose of this wood-eating catfish to swallow wood is not actually to eat the wood itself, but for the organic matter and microorganisms attached to the wood, such as algae, small plants, animals and other debris, as for the wood itself, they will be discharged in less than four hours.
As for the reason why this catfish eats so strangely, some scientists speculate that this is a habit formed in long-term survival competition with other local catfish species. Jerman said: "The basin where these catfish live is in the basin area, and rocks are rare. There's more mud, water and wood there. Therefore, wood is a source of food for fish. ”
02 Eat your own treasure - moose
The moose living in temperate and subarctic coniferous and mixed forests in the Northern Hemisphere is the largest of the surviving deer family, and the male moose has a pair of beautiful large horns, which can provide the necessary nutrition for the male moose in addition to attacking and defending.
Every spring when the male moose grows new horns, a layer of fluffy soft skin grows with the new horns, which is a substance called "velvet", that is, deer antler velvet. Deer antler velvet is covered with tiny blood vessels and is rich in protein. In order to eat this nutritious delicacy, the male moose will deliberately rub the antlers on the trunk of the tree, so that the "velvet" on it will fall off, and then feast.
Moose antlers (image from Wikipedia)
03 Eat your own rabbit
One of the little animals we are most familiar with, the rabbit, eats very heavy taste. Rabbits are divided into two kinds, one is hard feces during the day, the other is soft feces at night, and rabbits only eat soft feces. The so-called soft feces, in fact, is part of the plant tissue in the food eaten by the rabbit into the cecum, under the action of microorganisms and beneficial bacteria, fermentation and decomposition, and then discharged products, so also called "cecum stool", these feces are wet and soft, and look like bunches of green grapes, so also called grape stool.
This kind of poop not only looks less disgusting, it contains vitamins and minerals and other nutrients, rabbits eat these poop again, the complex vitamins B and K inside will be absorbed by the small intestine for the needs of the body's growth, and the minerals contained are also conducive to promoting the absorption of nutrients by the rabbit body. These poop, which are re-absorbed and then discharged, become hard feces with no nutrients, and the rabbits will no longer eat it.
04 Red-green macaws that eat soil
Macaws, tropical birds living in the Rainforest of Central America like to eat clay for two reasons: One is that the local clay contains a certain amount of salt, eating it can supplement potassium, sodium, chlorine and other metal elements, these metal elements as electrolytes can maintain the osmotic pressure of somatic cells, as alkaline ions participate in the buffer system of intracellular fluid, regulate the acid-base balance in the body, help enhance physical strength, maintain physical health.
The second reason is that the red-green macaw is not picky eaters and does not refuse to come to all kinds of nuts, vegetables and seeds, and these foods will inevitably be poisonous. After the red-green macaw eats it, toxic substances will accumulate in the body and they will feel uncomfortable. At this time, the red and green macaws will also eat some clay, and then use the adsorption of this clay to suck the poison in the body, and then excrete it along the intestine.
Red-green macaw
05 Other animals that eat strangely
During the rainy season in Africa, sufficient precipitation, although it allows the grass and trees to flourish, also washes away the substances in the surface soils such as sodium, calcium and magnesium, making it impossible for African elephants to replenish the elements needed by this body. To compensate for this loss, many African elephants would go to places where there were caves to eat some gravel and sand.
After being wet by the rain, the spitting chicken will eat some of the leaves of the benzoin tree, and this bitter leaf is just a good medicine for colds. Big cats such as jaguars eat some moss or leaves to aid digestion when they feel uncomfortable in their stomachs. When the American black bear has just finished hibernating, it will deliberately eat some fruits that cause diarrhea to facilitate the discharge of food debris from the stomach.
Having said so much about the eating habits of animals, perhaps some of them are not recognized by you, and even make you sick. For this point, there is really no way to force a change, after all, human beings as intelligent creatures have long been accustomed to eating so-called high-end food, always pay attention to color and fragrance or something. But don't forget that the ancestors of human beings have evolved step by step from those low-level species, and as descendants, how can we ensure that our ancestors have not eaten food that is not accepted by modern civilization?
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Tadpole stave original work, reprinted to indicate the source