What's
in a snout? A lot. Jon Tennant, a doctoral researcher at Imperial
College London, surveyed the shapes of the snouts of different
cud-chewing animals. He found that both blunt and pointed snouts offer
particular advantages.
“When
you see cows in a field, their faces almost look like they’re glued to
the ground as they nibble away,” says Jon Tennant, a PhD student at
Imperial College London. Cows are in a category of plant-eaters
technically called “grazers,” which means they specialize in eating
grasses. Common wisdom says these animals have blunt faces so they can
mow through a field efficiently. By contrast, animals that prefer
leaves, twigs or fruits are called “browsers.” They’re thought to have
pointier faces so they can reach just the parts of a plant they want.
“It’s all about selectivity,” Tennant says. [...]
For the most
part, the common wisdom held up. Grass eaters had blunter snouts, and
browsers had pointer ones. But the rule isn’t perfect, Tennant found.
The snouts of cud-chewing mammals come in a glorious variety of shapes.
And many animals have feeding styles somewhere in between browsing and
grazing.
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