Omnivorous Animals (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what omnivorous animals are, what their characteristics are, the case of humans and other examples.

omnivorous animals fox hunting fish — Omnivores feed on both plants and other animals.

What are omnivorous animals?

Omnivorous animals (from Latin omni“everything” and I will vorare“eat”) are those heterotrophic organisms that have a flexible diet, that is, unspecialized. This means that can feed on various sources of organic matter, whether plant (like herbivores) or animals (like carnivores) without much distinction.

In fact, omnivores tend to feed on whatever is available at the time, so their diets can be truly diversified. are opportunistic eaters and general, which may well play the role of predator, scavenger or vegetarian consumer.

However, they should not be confused with cases of adaptation in which some herbivores may eventually eat meat, or some carnivores eat plants. Omnivores are capable of alternating between one diet and another with full consciousness and will.

Characteristics of omnivorous animals

Unlike carnivores, physically and biochemically adapted to obtaining and digesting meat, or herbivores, adapted to a vegetarian diet, omnivores do not present too particular adaptations.

They retain a non-specific biological profile, capable of feeding on the leaves of a plant, insects or the red meat of a prey more or less equally. Consequently, in many cases they have mixed dentures equipped with different teeth capable of tearing, crushing or cutting, as is the case with human teeth.

On the other hand, Their digestive systems are somewhere between the direct simplicity of carnivores and the delayed complexity of herbivores. That is, they can only partially digest the most complex and difficult plant matter, which is usually expelled directly as waste.

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Examples of omnivorous animals

omnivorous animals crow — Among omnivores are all types of animals, including birds, such as the crow.

When looking for examples of omnivorous animals, the human being is the most obvious case. There are people who want to eat only vegetables, others only meat, and a vast majority who try to balance their food by turning to different sources, which in some cases even include insects.

However, we can also list most bears, pigs, crows, raccoons, mice and rats, dogs, opossums, certain turtles, crabs, hedgehogs, skunks, fish such as piranhas, or the reptiles of the clade Lacertilia.

The human being

The human being, in its complexity, is probably the simplest example of an omnivorous animal. Its teeth are complex and mixed, its digestive system is much more complex than that of a strict carnivore, but much simpler than that of a herbivore and is capable of nourishing itself from different food sources, from fruits, seeds, insects, meats, vegetables, roots, etc.

There is a debate about whether we always eat that way or whether our species learned to be omnivorous during its evolutionary history. It is known that our probable ancestors were also omnivores, and that many apes to which we are related tend to be omnivores, or herbivores with occasional tendencies towards the consumption of insects or other meats.

Even so, The consumption of meat (and the invention of fire to better digest it) is considered a fundamental milestone in our evolutionary history since it would have given us an essential calorie supplement for the formation of more complex brains.

However, it has been shown that a diet rich in meat (especially red) is harmful to our metabolism, unable to deal with such an amount of saturated fat without suffering the consequences. The debate, therefore, continues.

carnivorous animals

carnivorous tiger hunting — Big cats are examples of carnivorous animals.

carnivorous animals are specialized consumers, who obtain their organic matter from the bodies of other animals mostly. This means they are either predators or scavengers.

They have sharp teeth to tear flesh, as well as claws, pincers, poisons or other competitive mechanisms to capture their prey and guarantee food. It is possible, however, that some carnivores supplement their diet with other types of food.

Examples of carnivorous animals are the lion, the hyena, the vulture, the condor, the pelican or the tiger.

herbivorous animals

omnivorous herbivorous ruminant animals — Herbivores, like cows, have much more complex digestive systems.

Herbivores are the opposite side of the coin to carnivores. Also are consumers but on an exclusively vegetarian diet that is, they feed on organic matter of plant origin: leaves, stems, shoots, seeds, fruits, roots, bark, etc.

For that reason have specialized teeth to crush plant fibers and long, complex digestive systems from many stomachs, which allow cellulose to be broken down and nutrients obtained. This is the case of ruminants, who come back and chew the food again until the greatest possible digestion is guaranteed.

Examples of herbivorous animals are cows, deer, giraffes and aphids.