40.3 Adaptations for Feeding

Animals have evolved a variety of adaptations to enhance their ability to acquire energy and nutrients from the environment. Animals eat other organisms, whether they are other animals, plants, or fungi. Herbivores are adapted to eat plants; carnivores are adapted to eat animals; and omnivores are adapted to eat both. To acquire energy and nutrients effectively from the food that they eat, animals have evolved a diversity of ways to capture food and mechanisms for breaking down that food before its digestion in the gut.