Why don't all Animals eat Plants or Meat??

Question

I dunno I just HAVE to answer that question in school or I'M dead Meat as in Detention

Answer 1

All animals must eat to survive since they are not photosynthetic like plants. Therefore they must eat something. If they all ate the same thing what they ate would disappear and there would be a surplus of other foods. Something always adapts to take advantage of such surpluses. Therefore some animals adapt to eat plants and other animals adapt to eat meat.

Coral one of the few exception to this. Coral is an animal with algae living in its cells. The algae is photosynthetic. Still some coral also feed on detritous and plankton..

Answer 2

All animals are built differently. Some are designed to eat plants, and some are designed to eat meat. A herbivore's (plant eater's) teeth are more flat, so they can grind vegetables and plants. A carnivore's (meat eater's) teeth are more sharp to rip meat off of the animal it's eating.

Also, if all animals ate plants, plants would eventually run out. This would lead to a lack of food for all animals. It would also cause a lack of oxygen, because plants turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. All life would vanish from the Earth.

If all animals ate meat, we wouldn't be able to live. Plants make their own food from sunlight. When animals eat plants, they take that energy. Then the animal is eaten by another animal and the energy keeps going on and on. If plants weren't eaten, the energy would never make it to the animals, and all animals would die. A lot of tree huggers would be happy though, because plants would thrive.

Answer 3

I believe you are asking about the food web.
The amount of available energy is decreased farther away from the primary producers, the autotrophs, the heterotroph is.

Autotrophs feed themselves, usually using sunlight for photosynthesis. Heterotrophs acquire that energy by consuming either plants directly or by eating what ate the plant. All animals are heterotrophs.
Autotrophs Phototrophs photosysthesize.
Heterotrophes all prey on other organisms.
herbivores,
carnivores,
detritovores.

At each level there is energy lost in the metabolic use of the material consumed. This means that there can be fewer members at each subsequent level in the food web.
1000 Producing plants support 100 herbivores (primary consumers) that support 10 carnivores (secondary consumers). However this kind of linearity does not exist.

Carnivores will eat both herbivores and other carnivores. Some will be omnivores, eating plants or animals, so acquire energy from several levels by varying their diet. All of there organisms will be eliminating wastes including fallen leaves, outgrown/shed skin, and finally their bodies. This is the final trophic level, the decomposers or detritovores.


Energy is the limiting factor at each level. Every organism occupies a niche that has optimized its access to the total amount of energy.

Answer 4

Probably becuase different animals are designed to eat different stuff.
Tigers have sharp claws and powerful teeth which make them powerful predators and meat-eaters. Plants wouldn't give them enough energy and they might not be able to digest them properly
Elephants have long trunks to grasp leaves and plants and grinding teeth. It would find it difficult to hunt and it probably couldn't digest meat and it'll be by far more suited to eat plants

And if their all started to eat the same things then other weaker animals will find it MUCH harder to compete and would die and also there probably much more conflicts between animals, as animals hate the idea of a fight in case of a fatal injury

Answer 5

It is all about the food chain...

You need every type of animal to keep every other type of animal in check...

Tigers eat deer, deer eat grass, grass eats worm leavings, worms eat dead tigers...

No matter what the P.E.T.A. terriorists say there is a reason behind why we all do what we all do!

Eating both meat AND veggies means that we humans were able to get the full range of nutrients that we needed to get to where we are today.

If we had only eaten plants then we wouldn't have had the protien we needed to build such mass to get up onto 2 legs...

The fat is used in our brains... Our brains are almost all fat!

But if we ONLY ate meat then we wouldn't have the carbs to break down into the sugars that our brains need for energy...

We are programed to eat sweet things from birth because of the balance between protein and carbs required to produce a fully functional brain.

Yes, you can get protien from plant sources but you can't get the full range of enzimes and b12 that humans need to function!

Meat, in one form or another, is essential to a fully healthy human.

Remember... Pills can supply a lot of what a vegitarian diet lacks but pills are not natural... And I thought that the point behind going fully vegitarian was to be on a "Natural" diet.

We are complicated creatures... We can't survive on only one or the other!!!

Answer 6

Guessing that you are asking, "Why do some animals only eat meat and others only eat plants? Why don't all animals eat both?"
Animals specialize in one or the other because of the special adaptations required to use meat or plants efficiently. Man - who does both - uses tools. Other omnivores ("eaters of all") like bears, eat meat for energy and eat mostly a limited group of easy to digest seasonal plants - berries and fruits mostly.
Plant eaters have to cope with the low energy value of green plants, so they eat constantly and have multiple stomachs to process the hard to digest cellulose. For protection, they function in herds.
Meat eaters have to cope with their food running away and fighting back so they have sharp claws and teeth which are also good for tearing tough muscle.
Man has grinding teeth in the back, like a cow and sharp teeth in front that interlock like a cat or bear.

Answer 7

The different digestive systems of different mammles and other types of animals are varried and it also depents on their teeth and how their parents raised them to hunt for food.

Answer 8

if it makes you feel better, one spices of whale (I don't know which one) does not eat ether. it eats micr orginisms that fit into the bacteria family (not animals or plants.

the answers is because that is how energy is transfered through the food web.

Answer 9

I think I would answer that with the questions, how are you defining "Animal" ? and which ones do not eat plant or animal?

Answer 10

Like humans ,some animals are vegetarians. I think you will have to look it up on the web.Try Animals and their eating habits