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Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead

nationalpost.com

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Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead

#61

Post by CamperBob2 »

burfog wrote: post #15
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #4

My understanding is that damn near anything (at least among mammals) will eat meat if they can get it in bite-sized bits. Ruminants may not have the teeth to tear chunks off a carcass, but they'll crunch up baby birds given the opportunity. Someone else has already done all the hard work of converting plant matter into the stuff that meat is made of, so it's high-density protein with very little metabolic cost. Even…

I find it astonishing that the disease risk doesn't lead to a strong aversion to having contact with other animals for any purpose other than reproduction. This is especially true for cannibalism. In the wild, antibiotics are not provided. Worms can get in the heart, lungs, and brain. Even external parasites are risky. Disease means death. The situation is slightly more understandable with some of the dedicated meat…

Rabbits in the wild don't generally live long enough to die of parasite infections.

Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead

#62

Post by ironic_ali »

barbecue_sauce wrote: post #38
mrec wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and are the fattest people on the planet Not even close. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_body_mass...

There's a few countries that are on there multiple times (like Mexico and New Zealand). How does that work?

Because NZ is so awesome, it's on the list twice!

Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead

#63

Post by shasheene »

The broader point is that animals thought to be purely herbivores are in actual fact 'opportunistic omnivores': they'll supplement their diets with animal biomass (including bones) if given an opportunity. This is especially common animals that are unable to get complete nutrition or caloric intake from their existing diet.

Another interesting concept is 'placentophagy' (mammals being observed eating their own placentas post pregnancy).

Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead

#66

Post by grawprog »

jmartrican wrote: post #49
grawprog wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are significant anatomical differences between herbivores and carnivores. Their digestive systems are specialized to processing either animal or plant based protein and fiber more efficiently. Herbivore teeth differe greatly from carnivore teeth and are specialized for grinding where as carnivore teeth tend to be specialized towards biting and tearing. Humans are omnivores. Like Black bears, raccoons etc. Our d…

Maybe the recent discoveries outlined in this article show that maybe there is no exclusive herbivore digestive system among most land based mammals.

There's a difference between eating your dead in a survival situation and consuming animal protein over an extended period of time. It's not that they're not capable of it. It's that their bofies aren't adapted to it and it's inefficient for them to process over long periods. Their bodies are adapted to process plants more efficiently so they do. If they're starving they'll eat what they can. Biologists have known this for a long time. This isn't new information. The differences in teeth and intestinal structure are very distinct. We've cutting open animals for a long time.

Obligate Herbivores will have extra stomachs and digestive chambers, special reguritating mechanisms to allow rechewing of food.

Obligate Carnivores tend to have shorter simpler digestive systems not capable of processing plant material.

If anything I would be more impressed to find out some carnivores were found relying on plants than the other way around. Plants are harder to digest than meat is. A herbivore occasionally eating meat really isn't that rare or anything to get excited about.

Discovering a tiger that lived on bamboo or something now that would be something new and would maybe be something we could use to start rewriting what we know about digestion.

Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead

#68

Post by yellowbuilding »

Svoka wrote: post #67

Anthropomorphization is bad. Reminds me group selection studies, where scientists expected animals to self regulate and reduce amount of breeding in bad conditions, while in fact it just caused cannibalism.

How is that anthropomorphization? Humans do all sorts of comparable things. In floundering economies, the wealthy get more greedy and protective. There is no end to the historical examples of cannibalism in dire times.

We technically have social regulation norms, but those are ultimately threats of abandonment. Our emotions are dependent on mutual approval because that is beneficial to encouraging group-compatible behaviors.

Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead

#69

Post by mcv »

By pure coincidence I had a similar discussion with my friends yesterday. One claimed that even the most carnivorous animals (sharks, he claimed) eat some vegetables (up to 20%, though that sounds like a lot to me). Wolves apparently like to eat the stomach of their prey first, which in the case of usually herbivorous prey, is likely to contain a herbivorous diet. I read before that deer like to eat the occasional bird.

If true, it seems like there are no true carnivores and herbivores: everybody is omnivorous to some extent. It's just what you get the majority of your diet from.

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