Re: The joy of Herbivores

On 12 Nov 2024 04:52:07 GMT, Robert Riches wrote:

A few decades ago, I was informed of at least one case where
do-gooders had left hay for an overpopulation of deer.  The deer
continued to die.  Analysis showed the deer starved to death with
full stomachs, because their digestive systems lacked the enzymes
to digest the types of hay that were being left for them.

That doesn’t make any sense to me. There is essentially just one major
indigestible material in grassy/leafy matter, and that is cellulose. Only
certain kinds of bacteria know how to digest cellulose -- no vertebrate
does. So all herbivores have populations of bacteria like these in their
guts -- if you look at a herbivore, you will see it is basically an
elaborate system of digestive plumbing on legs -- a comfortable
environment for those bacteria, that handily collects the food for them.

And cellulose is cellulose. Whatever plant source the herbivore gets it
from, it’s going to get digested.