BIOL 1902 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Radula, Cecum, Cud
24 Mar 2019
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Document Summary
In the last lecture we left off looking at nutritional adaptations in animals. Every part of a plant is a food for some animal, and each part requires some special adaptations. Ex: nectar requires a long proboscis / long beak, sap requires probing mouth parts, Now, we will talk about plant tissue, problems animals face with eating it, and why it"s so hard to digest. Plant tissue has a lot of tough structural components (ex: cellulose) which is a big problem. The first problem herbivores face is ingestion , getting food into their mouths. Slugs/snails break off plant tissues with a radula. The radula is like a little miniature chainsaw (a conveyor belt of sharp teeth) that drops down and brings in the plant tissue. The majority of caterpillars eat from outside the leaf, However, some smaller caterpillars live inside the leaves and eat them from the inside. Miner - as in they mine the material inside the leaf.
