BIOB34H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Hindgut Fermentation, Cecum, Hindgut
Document Summary
Hindgut fermentation they harbor microbes that does fermentative digestion somewhere in their hindgut rg. horses, zebras, rhinos, elephants, rabbits, hares, and some marsupials. Particular region that gets used for fermentative digestion depends on the size of the animals: small uses cecum to do fermentative digestion space between large and small intestine (i) eg. B vitamins however they do not practice coprophages they eat large quantities of foods or try to get these nutrients from their diet (eat food that contains large amount of essential amino acids and b vitamins) Foregut fermentation advantages more efficient digestion and consumption of food, they don"t lose b vitamins or essential amino acids, no need to coprophage. Microbes in hindgut fermenter food comes to stomach first, the host take up all the nutrients in can digest and whatever that is left (hard to digest) is than sent to the microbes to break down.
