Nutrition in Animals

Core concept

Herbivores typically have longer digestive systems to break down tough plant material like cellulose, while carnivores have shorter digestive tracts suited to digesting meat more quickly, along with sharp teeth for tearing flesh. Some animals show more specialised diets — for instance, a panda almost exclusively eats bamboo despite technically being classified within a carnivore-related group, showing that classification is based on general patterns rather than absolute rules.