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Close-up of a Galápagos giant tortoise eating plants

Herbivorous

Herbivores are animals that exist mainly on a diet of plants or algae. Some eat a wide range of plants, others are more exclusive and eat only particular types, such as monarch butterfly caterpillars which feed on milkweed and pandas on bamboo. Anatomical and physiological adaptations help some herbivores become specialists, for example, in their tolerance of spiky leaves or an in-built antidote to toxins. Other specialists restrict themselves to certain parts of a plant: hummingbirds feed on nectar and greenfly feed on sap.

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Animals with this behaviour

Mammals

Birds

Reptiles

Ray-finned fishes

Insects

Snails and slugs

Clitellata

Synapsids

About

Herbivores are organisms that are anatomically and physiologically adapted to eat plant-based foods. Herbivory is a form of consumption in which an organism principally eats autotrophs[page needed] such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria. More generally, organisms that feed on autotrophs in general are known as primary consumers.

Herbivory usually refers to animals eating plants; fungi, bacteria and protists that feed on living plants are usually termed plant pathogens (plant diseases),and microbes that feed on dead plants are saprotrophs. Flowering plants that obtain nutrition from other living plants are usually termed parasitic plants.

A herbivore is not the same as a vegetarian, a human who voluntarily undertakes a primarily herbivorous diet.

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Behaviours

Other Feeding habits behaviours

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