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The variety of different animals that are classified as omnivores can be placed
into further sub-categories depending on their feeding behaviors. Frugivores
include maned wolves and orangutans;[12][13] insectivores include swallows and pink
fairy armadillos;[14][15] granivores include large ground finches and mice.
All of these animals are omnivores, yet still fall into special niches in terms of
feeding behavior and preferred foods. Being omnivores gives these animals more food
security in stressful times or makes possible living in less consistent
environments.[16]
Contents
1 Etymology and definitions
1.1 Classification, contradictions and difficulties
2 Omnivorous species
2.1 General
2.2 Omnivorous mammals
2.3 Other species
3 See also
4 References
Etymology and definitions
The word omnivore derives from the Latin omnis (all), and vora, from vorare, (to
eat or devour), having been coined by the French and later adopted by the English
in the 1800s.[17] Traditionally the definition for omnivory was entirely behavioral
by means of simply "including both animal and vegetable tissue in the diet.[18]" In
more recent times, with the advent of advanced technological capabilities in fields
like gastroenterology, biologists have formulated a standardized variation of
omnivore used for labeling a species' actual ability to obtain energy and nutrients
from materials.[19][20] This has subsequently conditioned two context specific
definitions.
Omnivorous species
General
Although cases exist of herbivores eating meat and carnivores eating plant matter,
the classification "omnivore" refers to the adaptations and main food source of the
species in general, so these exceptions do not make either individual animals or
the species as a whole omnivorous. For the concept of "omnivore" to be regarded as
a scientific classification, some clear set of measurable and relevant criteria
would need to be considered to differentiate between an "omnivore" and other
categories, e.g. faunivore, folivore, and scavenger.[36] Some researchers argue
that evolution of any species from herbivory to carnivory or carnivory to herbivory
would be rare except via an intermediate stage of omnivory.[37]
Omnivorous mammals
Various mammals are omnivorous in the wild, such as species of pigs,[38] badgers,
bears, coatis, civets, hedgehogs, opossums, skunks, sloths, squirrels,[39]
raccoons, chipmunks,[40] mice,[41] and rats.[42] Hominidae, including humans and
chimpanzees, are also omnivores.[7][43][44]
Other species
Various birds are omnivorous, with diets varying from berries and nectar to
insects, worms, fish, and small rodents. Examples include cassowaries, chickens,
crows[50] and related corvids, keas, rallidae, and rheas. In addition, some
lizards, turtles, fish (such as piranhas and catfish), and invertebrates are also
omnivorous.
Quite often, mainly herbivorous creatures will eagerly eat small quantities of
animal food when it becomes available. Although this is trivial most of the time,
omnivorous or herbivorous birds, such as sparrows, often will feed their chicks
insects while food is most needed for growth.[51] On close inspection it appears
that nectar-feeding birds such as sunbirds rely on the ants and other insects that
they find in flowers, not for a richer supply of protein, but for essential
nutrients such as cyanocobalamin that are absent from nectar. Similarly, monkeys of
many species eat maggoty fruit, sometimes in clear preference to sound fruit.[52]
When to refer to such animals as omnivorous, or otherwise, is a question of context
and emphasis, rather than of definition.
See also
Consumer-resource systems
Evolution (biology)
Food chain
Food energy
Ingestion
List of diets
Mesocarnivore
Productivity (ecology)
References
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Ecology: Modelling ecosystems: Trophic components
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Ecology: Modelling ecosystems: Other components
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Feeding behaviours
vte
Ethology
Categories: Animals by eating behaviorsEthology
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