-HERBIVOREA herbivore is an animal that gets its energy from eating plants, and only plants.

Omnivores can also eat parts of plants, but generally only the fruits and vegetables produced by fruit-bearing plants. Many herbivores have special digestive systems that let them digest all kinds of plants, including grasses. Herbivores need a lot of energy to stay alive. Many of them, like cows and sheep, eat all day long. There should be a lot of plants in your ecosystem to support your herbivores. If you put carnivores or some omnivores in your ecosystem, they'll eat your herbivores, so make sure you have enough herbivores to support them. An herbivore is an animal that eats plants as its primary source of sustenance. Examples of herbivores include large mammals such as cattle, deer, sheep, and kangaroos, as well as smaller creatures such as leaf-eating insects and crustaceans that graze upon aquatic algae. However, many animals are not exclusively herbivorous. In addition to feeding mostly upon live plants, omnivorous animals such as pigs and bears may also kill and eat other animals, opportunistically feed upon dead creatures, or eat dead plant biomass. Animals have different ways of digesting the food they eat. Herbivores are animals that eat plants. Many herbivores do not have upper incisors (the teeth on the top jaw in the very front that cut food), cutting the plants with their lips instead. However, all herbivores need their molars (the big flat teeth at the back of the mouth) for grinding the mouthfuls of food. A herbivore's molars are big and ridged for better grinding. Herbivore skulls have spaces for big muscles to be attached to move their jaws for so much chewing. Plants, particularly grasses, are very hard to digest. Animals that eat plants need to have particular bacteria inside their bodies to help break down the tough plants so that they release nutrients. This process is called fermentation.

Herbivores do this in either of two ways: Some herbivores are ruminants. This means that there are 4 parts to their stomachs: Ruminant herbivores Food goes to the first parts, called the rumen and the reticulum, where some include giraffe, antelopes, camel. digestion takes place. Later on this food, now called cud, is brought back up into the animal's mouth to be chewed more. This is

called chewing the cud. The cud is then swallowed and goes into the third and fourth parts of the stomach, called the omasum and abomasum, where digestion continues. Ruminants do not need to drink very much water because there is moisture in and on the plants they eat. Some herbivores are non-ruminants. The fermentation takes place further down their digestive system. This means that by the time the tough walls of the plant cells are broken down, the food has already gone past the part of the gut that absorbs most nutrients. This means that they have to eat huge quantities in order to get enough nutrition. Non-ruminants pass quite a lot of undigested food out of their bodies. They have to spend about three quarters of the day feeding. For grazers, this means a great deal of time where they are at greater risk of being attacked by predators. They have long heads, with eyes located high on the head and at the sides so they can be on the lookout for predators while they graze.

Non- ruminant herbivores include zebra, hippopotamus, rhinoceros.

Teeth:
Herbivore's teeth are not pointed, but flat edged. These are useful tools for biting,

crushing and grinding. Other herbivore's saliva is alkaline, containing carbohydrate digestive enzymes. Other herbivore's jaws cannot shear, but have good side to side and back to front motion Herbivore's small intestines are 10 to 12 times the length of their body, and winds itself back and forth in random directions. This is a tool designed for keeping food in it for long enough periods of time so that all the valuable nutrients and minerals can be extracted from it before it enters the large intestine.

 In herbivorous mammals, we see a type of molar that is called hypsodont, meaning "high tooth." Teeth that start out tall can be worn down by grinding as the animal ages without completely destroying the tooth. (Remember that adult mammals cannot replace lost teeth the way that sharks and many reptiles can; they must make their teeth last their entire lives.) Adult mammals that reach extreme old age might actually wear down their teeth to the point that they can no longer chew their food and will then starve to death or be weakened to the point that they are easy prey. One type of hypsodont molar is the selenodont tooth. Selenodont dentition is found in the Artiodactyl Order, a group of animals that contains the camels, members of the deer family, antelope and cattle. Selenodont means "moon tooth," and refers to the general moon shape of the cusps of the teeth. Another type of hypsodont molar is the lophodont tooth, meaning "ridge tooth." Lophodont dentition is found in the Perissodactyl Order, a group of animals that contains horses (including donkeys, asses and zebras), tapirs and rhinos. Mammals that tend to be more omnivorous, such as pigs, bears, primates (including humans) and some rodents, have lower-crowned teeth with cusps that form separate, rounded hillocks called bunodont teeth. The bunodont tooth is used more for crushing food and some grinding, and allows an animal to have a more varied diet. You notice that humans have bunodont dentition; this allows us to eat a variety of foods, fruits, vegetables, grains, meat and junk food.

Rabbit Digestion Digestion begins in the mouth. The food is mashed up by the teeth and mixed with saliva, which contains proteins that begin breaking down the food. When the food is swallowed it enters the stomach where it is mixed with stomach acid and digestive enzymes, which continue the digestion process. It then moves out of the stomach into the small intestine where nutrients are absorbed into the body, and then it continues on into the large intestine where the food particles are sorted by size. The larger particles of indigestible fiber drive the smaller fragments of digestible fiber backwards into the cecum, which is a large blind-ended sac located at the junction of the small and large intestines. The indigestible particles are then passed out in the fecal pellets (regular poop) and the cecum begins the fermentation process that will produce what is commonly referred to as night feces or cecotropes, which a rabbit will ingest directly from the anus. You can tell the difference between normal feces and cecotrophes by their soft,shiny clumped texture and often more pungent odor. A rabbit's cecum maintains a delicate mix of protozoa, yeast and good bacteria, which is crucial to keeping your rabbit healthy. If something upsets the delicate bacterial balance (such as stress; some oral antibiotics such as penicillin & related drugs; a high fat, low fiber diet; too many carbohydrates, etc.), bad bacteria will begin to grow. These bad bacteria produce toxins that can be harmful or fatal to your rabbit. On the other hand, the products of good cecal fermentation are crucial to healthy gut flora, because through coprophagy, the oral re-ingestion of the cecal pellets produced by this fermentation process, the rabbit can absorb by normal digestion the special nutrients and vitamins contained in the cecal pellets. Some evidence suggests that bacteria from these [re-ingested] cecal pellets help the food digest while in the stomach