Representatives of wildlife have a wide variety of taste preferences and nutritional characteristics. For example, predators consume other organisms. But they can differ from each other, depending on the composition of the diet. Let's find out who are obligate predators? What animals belong to them?
Predation in nature
During evolution, living organisms have differently adapted to the process of obtaining energy and necessary substances. Plants, as a rule, receive organic compounds, converting them from inorganic (water, air, soil, solar heat). Animals do not know how to do this, so they are forced to consume ready-made organic substances by eating plants or other animals. Based on the diet, they are distinguished as:
- herbivores;
- carnivores;
- omnivores.
Carnivores include predators. They feed on animal organisms, usually attacking and killing them before doing so. Unlike parasites, scavengers, and bloodsucking species, true predators kill their victims. They can pursue prey, wait in ambush or prepare special traps for it. Of course, in reality, everything is more complicated than in classifications, because omnivores and carrion hunters also sometimes hunt other animals.
Usually, we associate mammals with predators - lions, tigers, foxes, wolves. However, they also include various amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish, shellfish, insects and other classes of animals. Moreover, even some fungi and higher plants are predators. For example, a Venus flytrap from a family of sundews grows in US marshes and feeds on bugs, grasshoppers, spiders and butterflies. When the victim sits on her leaf traps, they quickly slam shut, forming a cavity in which digestion takes place.
Obligatory predators
Predators can be divided into optional and obligate. It all depends on what diet they adhere to. Optional species are those that can last for some time without meat or often supplement it with a significant proportion of plant food. For example, foxes and wolves are conditionally omnivorous: along with birds, small mammals and fish, they often consume acorns, nuts, and berries.
Obligatory predators cannot stand the absence of meat and fish on the menu. Food of plant origin occupies 5-10% in their diet. Basically, it comes to them from the stomachs of killed prey. Their body is imprisoned for the digestion of animal products, which is manifested both in the size of the intestine, and in the level of acidity in the stomach, and in the enzymes responsible for digestion.
Obligatory predators assimilate important fatty acids and vitamins exclusively from meat. Therefore, the transition to a vegetable diet will result in a disorder of many body systems, poor condition of the skin, coat and internal organs.
Domestic cats
Among mammals, small and large cats are a prime example of obligate predators. The hunting instinct of these animals is well developed and suggests that they have developed very modern eating habits for a very, very long time. Tigers, lynxes, leopards, manuls - all of them have sharp fangs, long claws, a delicate ear and excellent attack skills.
Domestication of cats has led to the fact that people stopped seeing predatory animals in them. Sometimes caring owners try to transfer their pets to a “healthy diet”, including a large number of vegetables and cereals in their diet. This does not lead to anything good, because domestic cats, like their wild counterparts, need a lot of meat and offal. Sometimes they still need plant foods. For example, grass and whole grain cereals help them cleanse the intestines of undigested food debris.
They get the necessary arachidonic acid from eggs, liver, kidneys, Omega-3 and Omega-6 from white fish, and the amino acid taurine from beef, tuna, and turkey. Cats are not able to synthesize vitamin A from vegetables due to the lack of a special enzyme. They get it only from meat.
What does a ferret eat?
Together with weasels, ermines and minks, ferrets form a separate genus in the family of martens. These are small animals common in Eurasia and North America. A thousand years ago, they were domesticated to fight rats and other rodents, as well as to hunt hares. Today they have again become popular pets, but they keep them in the house for playfulness, curiosity and cute appearance.
Ferret is an obligate predator. In nature, the basis of his diet is vole mice, bird eggs and young chicks, snakes, frogs and insects. Animals that live close to the villages like to visit chickens and rabbits. They are very dexterous and courageous, they usually wait for their prey at the holes, and then attack and strangle.
Domestic ferrets are recommended to be fed turkey, quail, eggs, offal, blood and meat. In its saliva, the amylase enzyme is absent, which allows sugar and starch to be broken down in the mouth. Further processing of these substances gives a large load on the liver and pancreas of the animal, and there is no benefit from them. Ferrets need raw vegetables and fruits not as a source of nutrients, but to improve intestinal motility and microflora.
Snakes
Snakes live on all continents except Antarctica, and are present in many ecological niches. They are not found only on some islands and in places with a cold arctic and subarctic climate.
All snakes are predators and feed on birds, rodents, small and large mammals. Some of them are content with a very narrow list of prey. For example, a crawfish already eats mainly crayfish, only occasionally eating other animals.
As a rule, snakes do not chew food, but swallow the whole victim. To push it through, they alternately move their right and left lower jaws. Some of them have poison, which they paralyze the prey. Non-toxic species strangle prey with the help of a strong muscular body. Large pythons and boas can even kill and swallow a puma or hyena, but are usually content with medium-sized prey.
