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While foregut fermentation is generally considered more efficient, and monogastric animals cannot digest cellulose as efficiently as ruminants, [5] hindgut fermentation allows animals to consume small amounts of low-quality forage all day long and thus survive in conditions where ruminants might not be able to obtain nutrition adequate for their needs.
However, their ability to extract energy from cellulose digestion is less efficient than in ruminants. [2] Herbivores digest cellulose by microbial fermentation. Monogastric herbivores which can digest cellulose nearly as well as ruminants are called hindgut fermenters, while ruminants are called foregut fermenters. [3]
A large percentage of herbivores also have mutualistic gut flora made up of bacteria and protozoans that help to degrade the cellulose in plants, [1] whose heavily cross-linking polymer structure makes it far more difficult to digest than the protein- and fat-rich animal tissues that carnivores eat. [2]
One possible predator of gorillas is the leopard. Gorilla remains have been found in leopard scat, but this may be the result of scavenging. [ 47 ] When the group is attacked by humans, leopards, or other gorillas, an individual silverback will protect the group, even at the cost of his own life. [ 48 ]
Once converted to CO 2, plants can again perform photosynthesis and fix that carbon back into cellulose. From here, cattle can eat the plants and the cycle begins once again. In essence, the methane belched from cattle is not adding new carbon to the atmosphere. Rather it is part of the natural cycling of carbon through the biogenic carbon ...
This action, rather than muscular peristalsis, is responsible for the movement of food through the gastropod digestive tract. [1] Two diverticular glands open into the stomach, and secrete enzymes that help to break down the food. In the more primitive species, these glands may also absorb the food particles directly and digest them ...
Cellulose is a polymer made with repeated glucose units bonded together by beta-linkages. Humans and many animals lack an enzyme to break the beta-linkages, so they do not digest cellulose. Certain animals, such as termites can digest cellulose, because bacteria possessing the enzyme are present in their gut. Cellulose is insoluble in water.
The eastern lowland gorillas and mountain gorillas were previously thought to be two of the three subspecies of one single species, the gorilla (Gorilla gorilla). However, genetic research has shown that the two eastern subspecies are far more closely related than the western subspecies: the western lowland gorilla ( G. gorilla gorilla ), which ...