![]() ![]() More gruesome examples of erstwhile vegetarians abound. Credit: Mills Baker/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY In a mixed-species zoo exhibit, the chicken and mice offered to captive birds of prey were actually consumed by domestic rabbits sharing the enclosure.Ī bonnethead shark contemplating its next meal. This behaviour is not isolated to a single observation and scientists believe it may even help diseases such as anthrax to spread more widely throughout hippo populations.Īs for the cute and fluffy bunnies, even these will choose meat over veg in some circumstances. ![]() However, the rotund vegetarians have been seen consuming animal carcasses, including other hippos. These iconic African animals are described in most textbooks as strict herbivores, who only use their large tusks and teeth for display and territorial fights. If the plant-eating shark was a shock, what about supposedly strict vegetarians turning to meat? Although carcass-eating bunnies and cannibal hippopotamuses may sound like something out of a horror movie, they aren't restricted to the imaginations of screenwriters. ![]() In the field of feeding ecology alone, there are multiple examples of animals breaking the "rules" we've set for them. Or perhaps it's just that we forget that animals don't read the books we write about them. Equally, nature seems to have a habit of surprising us. The natural world is far from fully understood, and while new scientific discoveries continue to be made, these revelations aren't keeping pace with the rate of environmental destruction. Who's to say there aren't other examples of species interacting with their habitats in unexpected ways? This finding isn't just an interesting new fact about sharks, it's an important acknowledgement that environments need to be protected for reasons we may not have even considered. Yet this new research has revealed that the bonnethead shark actually digests and draws nutrition from the seagrass – the first known omnivorous shark. We've known for some time that bonnethead sharks consume large quantities of seagrass, but this was thought to be accidental –- pesky vegetation finding its way into their mouths while they were hunting crabs. ![]()
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