List of feeding behaviours

Feeding is the process by which organisms, typically animals, obtain food. Terminology often uses either the suffixes -vore, -vory, or -vorous from Latin vorare, meaning "to devour", or -phage, -phagy, or -phagous from Greek φαγεῖν (phagein), meaning "to eat".

Circular dendrogram of feeding behaviours

A mosquito drinking blood (hematophagy) from a human (note the droplet of plasma being expelled as a waste)

A rosy boa eating a mouse whole

A red kangaroo eating grass

The robberfly is an insectivore, shown here having grabbed a leaf beetle

An American robin eating a worm

Hummingbirds primarily drink nectar

A krill filter feeding

A Myrmicaria brunnea feeding on sugar crystals

Evolutionary history

The evolution of feeding is varied with some feeding strategies evolving several times in independent lineages. In terrestrial vertebrates, the earliest forms were large amphibious piscivores 400 million years ago. While amphibians continued to feed on fish and later insects, reptiles began exploring two new food types, other tetrapods (carnivory), and later, plants (herbivory). Carnivory was a natural transition from insectivory for medium and large tetrapods, requiring minimal adaptation (in contrast, a complex set of adaptations was necessary for feeding on highly fibrous plant materials).[1]

Evolutionary adaptations

The specialization of organisms towards specific food sources is one of the major causes of evolution of form and function, such as:

mouth parts and teeth, such as in whales, vampire bats, leeches, mosquitos, predatory animals such as felines and fishes, etc.
distinct forms of beaks in birds, such as in hawks, woodpeckers, pelicans, hummingbirds, parrots, kingfishers, etc.
specialized claws and other appendages, for apprehending or killing (including fingers in primates)
changes in body colour for facilitating camouflage, disguise, setting up traps for preys, etc.
changes in the digestive system, such as the system of stomachs of herbivores, commensalism and symbiosis

Classification

By mode of ingestion

There are many modes of feeding that animals exhibit, including:

Filter feeding: obtaining nutrients from particles suspended in water
Deposit feeding: obtaining nutrients from particles suspended in soil
Fluid feeding: obtaining nutrients by consuming other organisms' fluids
Bulk feeding: obtaining nutrients by eating all of an organism.
Ram feeding and suction feeding: ingesting prey via the fluids around it.

By mode of digestion

Extra-cellular digestion: excreting digesting enzymes and then reabsorbing the products
Myzocytosis: one cell pierces another using a feeding tube, and sucks out cytoplasm
Phagocytosis: engulfing food matter into living cells, where it is digested

By food type

Polyphagy is the ability of an animal to eat a variety of food, whereas monophagy is the intolerance of every food except of one specific type (see generalist and specialist species).

Another classification refers to the specific food animals specialize in eating, such as:

Carnivore: the eating of animals
- Araneophagy: eating spiders
- Avivore: eating birds
- Corallivore: eating coral
- Durophagy: eating hard-shelled or exoskeleton bearing organisms
- Egg predator: eating eggs (but also see "Intrauterine cannibalism" below), also Ovivore
- Haematophage/Sanguivore: eating blood
- Insectivore: eating insects
  - Myrmecophage: eating ants and/or termites
- Invertivore: eating invertebrates
- Keratophagy or Ceratophagy: eating horny material, such as wool by cloths moths, or snakes eating their own skin after ecdysis.
- Lepidophagy: eating fish scales
- Molluscivore: eating molluscs
- Mucophagy: eating mucus
- Ophiophagy: eating snakes
- Piscivore: eating fish
- Anurophagy: eating frogs
- Spongivore: eating sponges
- Teuthophagore: eating mainly squid and other cephalopods
- Vermivore: eating worms
- Zooplanktonivore: eating zooplankton
Herbivore: the eating of plants
- Exudativore: eating plant and/or insect exudates (gum, sap, lerp, etc.)
  - Gumivore: eating tree gum
- Folivore: eating leaves
- Florivore: eating flower tissue prior to seed coat formation
- Frugivore: eating fruits
- Graminivore: eating grasses
- Granivore: eating seeds
- Nectarivore: eating nectar
- Palynivore: eating pollen
- Phytoplanktonivore: eating phytoplankton
- Xylophage: eating wood
Omnivore: the eating of both plants, animals, fungi, bacteria etc. The term means "all-eater".
By amount of meat in diet
- Hypercarnivore: more than 70% meat
- Mesocarnivore: 30–70% meat
- Hypocarnivore: less than 30% meat
Fungivore: the eating of fungus
Bacterivore: the eating of bacteria

The eating of non-living or decaying matter:

Coprophage: eating faeces
Detritivore: eating decomposing material
Geophagia: eating inorganic earth
Osteophage: eating bones
Saprophage: eating decaying organic matter
Scavenger: eating carrion

There are also several unusual feeding behaviours, either normal, opportunistic, or pathological, such as:

Cannibalism: feeding on members of the same species
- Anthropophagy: the practice of eating human flesh
- Intrauterine cannibalism
  - Oophagy or Ovophagy: the embryo/foetus eats sibling eggs
  - Embryophagy: the foetus eats sibling embryos
- Filial cannibalism
- Self-cannibalism: feeding on parts of one's own body (see also autophagy)
- Sexual cannibalism: cannibalism after mating
Kleptoparasitism: stealing food from another animal
Kleptopharmacophagy: act of stealing chemical compounds for consumption
Lignophagia: eating wood, typically a pathological condition in some domestic animals
Paedophagy: eating young animals
Pica: appetite for largely non-nutritive substances, e.g. clay or hair, sometimes in pregnancy or in pathological states, typically a medical or veterinary concern.
Placentophagy: eating placenta
Trophallaxis: eating food regurgitated by another animal
Zoopharmacognosy: self-medication by eating plants, soils, and insects to treat and prevent disease.

An opportunistic feeder sustains itself from a number of different food sources, because the species is behaviourally sufficiently flexible.

Storage behaviours

Some animals exhibit hoarding and caching behaviours in which they store or hide food for later use.

References

Sahney, S., Benton, M.J. & Falcon-Lang, H.J. (2010). "Rainforest collapse triggered Pennsylvanian tetrapod diversification in Euramerica" (PDF). Geology. 38 (12): 1079–1082. doi:10.1130/G31182.1.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Notes

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[SahneyBentonFerry2010RainforestCollapse-1] Sahney, S., Benton, M.J. & Falcon-Lang, H.J. (2010). "Rainforest collapse triggered Pennsylvanian tetrapod diversification in Euramerica" (PDF). Geology. 38 (12): 1079–1082. doi:10.1130/G31182.1.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)