BIOL 1902 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Ruffed Grouse, Spruce Grouse, Radula
28 Feb 2016
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Document Summary
Digestion: hard to digest due to tough structural components. Slugs & snails break off plant tissues w/ radula (mouth has miniature chainsaw-like feature) Moose have only lower incisors, so they rip off plant tissues. Mandibles, radula, & cheek teeth all perform same function, but arise from diff origins (called analogous structures) Ruffed grouse have no teeth: bite off swelling buds on trees. Analogous to the radula, mandibles, & cheek teeth is the gizzard (grinds & turns food; indigestion & digestion) Caterpillars don"t produce enzymes they waste a lot. Moose get help from bacteria: they eat 10x their body weight every day, chew cud (comes from stomach) rumen, food processed twice (called rumination, symbiotic relationship, caecum (pl. = caeca: eat their droppings (beavers do this too) this is called coprophagy, e. g. dung beetles eat other animals" droppings. Porcupines don"t eat their droppings their digestive tract is about 26% of their total weight. Most fruit-eating birds don"t only eat fruit.
