ruminants
Sign in to saveRuminants are herbivorous grazing or browsing artiodactyls belonging to the suborder Ruminantia that are able to acquire nutrients from plant-based food by fermenting it in a specialized stomach prior to digestion, principally through microbial actions. The process, which takes place in the front part of the digestive system and therefore is called foregut fermentation, typically requires the fermented ingesta (known as cud) to be regurgitated and chewed again. The process of rechewing the ingesta to further break down plant matter and stimulate digestion is called rumination or chewing the cu
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Ruminants are plant-eating hoofed animals with a specialized stomach that ferments plant material through microbial action before digestion, allowing them to extract nutrients from tough plant matter. They accomplish this through a process called rumination, where they regurgitate and rechew their food (called cud) to break it down further and aid digestion.
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Article
14 sectionsContents
- Taxonomy and evolution
- Phylogeny
- Classification
- Digestive system of ruminants
- Abundance, distribution, and domestication
- Ruminant physiology
- Rumen microbiology
- Tannin toxicity in ruminant animals
- Religious importance
- Other uses
- Ruminants and climate change
- See also
- References
- External links
Ruminants are herbivorous grazing or browsing artiodactyls belonging to the suborder Ruminantia that are able to acquire nutrients from plant-based food by fermenting it in a specialized stomach prior to digestion, principally through microbial actions. The process, which takes place in the front part of the digestive system and therefore is called foregut fermentation, typically requires the fermented ingesta (known as cud) to be regurgitated and chewed again. The process of rechewing the ingesta to further break down plant matter and stimulate digestion is called rumination or chewing the cud. The word ruminant comes from the Latin rūminārī, "to ruminate", from rūmen, the first stomach.
The roughly 200 species of ruminants include both domestic and wild species. Ruminating mammals include cattle, all domesticated and wild bovines, goats, sheep, giraffes, deer, gazelles, and antelopes. It has also been suggested that notoungulates also relied on rumination, as opposed to other atlantogenatans that rely on the more typical hindgut fermentation, though this is not entirely certain.