Nutrition In Animals

Nutrition in Animals Definition

It is the process by which animals obtain and utilize nutrients essential for growth, maintenance, repair, and energy production. It involves the ingestion, digestion, absorption, and assimilation of nutrients from food sources.

Introduction

Nutrition is essential for both animals and plants. While plants produce their own food through photosynthesis, animals cannot and must rely on plants or other animals for nourishment. Animals obtain nutrition by consuming plants directly (herbivores) or indirectly through animals that have eaten plants (carnivores). Some animals, known as omnivores, consume both plants and animals.

All organisms need food to survive and grow. Food contains nutrients like carbohydrates, fats, minerals, proteins, and vitamins, which are necessary for maintaining the body. These nutrients are complex and must be broken down into simpler components through digestion before they can be used.

Also Read: Nutrition in Plants

Nutrition in Animals

The nutritional intake of animals is influenced by their feeding habits, with the process of food intake known as ingestion. This process varies among animals; for instance, bees and hummingbirds extract nectar from plants, pythons swallow their prey whole, and cattle graze on grass.

The diverse feeding habits of animals have evolved over time. Early terrestrial animals, such as large amphibians, primarily consumed fish. As amphibians like frogs began to eat small fish and insects, reptiles started to consume other animals and plants.

The specialization of organisms toward specific food sources and eating methods is a major driver of form and function evolution. This is evident in the variations in mouth structures and tooth shapes in animals like whales, mosquitoes, tigers, and sharks, as well as the distinct beak forms in birds such as hawks, woodpeckers, pelicans, hummingbirds, and parrots, which are adaptations to their specific diets.

Animals can be categorized based on their food habits:

  • Herbivores: Animals like cows, goats, sheep, and buffaloes rely on plants and fruits for nutrition.
  • Carnivores: Lions, tigers, and wolves are examples of carnivores that depend on other animals for food.
  • Omnivores: Humans, bears, dogs, and crows are omnivores that consume both plants and animals.

Also Read: Asexual Reproduction

Nutrition in Animals Types

The different types of nutrition in animals are:

  1. Filter Feeding: Animals, especially fish, obtain nutrients from particles suspended in water.
  2. Deposit Feeding: Earthworms obtain nutrients from particles in the soil.
  3. Fluid Feeding: Animals like honey bees and mosquitoes consume other organisms' fluids for nutrition.
  4. Bulk Feeding: Animals like pythons obtain nutrients by eating the whole organism.
  5. Ram Feeding and Suction Feeding: Aquatic predators, such as bony fish, ingest prey by surrounding fluids.

Process of Nutrition in Animals

Ingestion

The process of intake of food. 

Digestion

It is the breakdown of large and complex molecules into simpler, smaller and soluble forms. 

Absorption

Taking up of the digested food through intestinal wall to blood or body fluid. 

Assimilation

In this process absorbed food is taken by body cells incorporated into components protoplasm. 

Also Read: Vegetative Propagation

Egestion

The process by which undigested matter is expelled out. 

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Frequently Asked Questions on Nutrition In Animals

Ans. The nutrients used by animals include carbohydrates, nucleic acids, lipids, proteins, minerals, and vitamins.

Ans. The 5 steps which occur in the process of nutrition in animals are- Ingestion, Digestion, Absorption, Assimilation and Egestion.

Ans. Heterotrophic nutrition

Ans. The study of the composition and characteristics of the material consumed by the animal.

Ans. Water

Ans. The first step of nutrition is ingestion or the intake of food.