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 12 hard defenses DHJanzen100251.jpg high resolution
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Before diving into plant defenses, lets think a bit about the diet of a carnivore versus the diet of a herbivore. The Hyena skull above is a machine for chopping up meat, bone, skin, ligaments, etc. That hyena - the size of a large German shepard dog - can eat a ten pound gazelle in 15 seconds. However, once the food is in its gut, the digestion process for any one of hundreds of species vertebrates is about the same. This is very much the opposite of what happens when a herbivore fills up on the few species of plants that it can eat (and most plant species, it cannot eat at all). The herbivore head is a marvel of distinctive processing to deal with the secondary compounds and other indigestibles, and that is just the beginning of the process (see later lecture on the gut). Incidentally note the difference between these teeth and that of a cow or horse. |
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