Goat Adaptations

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Herbivore: Goat
Food eaten: grass, herbs, tree leave and other plant material. (Anon., 1999)
Dental formula and total dentition: diphyodont dentition
Deciduous 0 0 3
3 1 3 = 10 Permanent 0 0 3 3
3 1 3 3
(Rouge, 2001)
How the animal is adapted for its diet in terms of:
Teeth shape and size: goats have mostly molars because they are grazers. They use their top lip to move their food around.
Length and complexity of digestive system: Goats have four compartment stomachs which are designed specifically to digest food high in fibre. The size of the four compartments change through growth. Kids stomach compartments are very small and so they depend on liquid, but as they develop and start eating solids the rumen becomes larger as it is more active and because of this the other compartments also grow. In the rumen organisms build up protein and all the vitamin B needed by the goat. Once the food has been broken into smaller particles it passes to the second chamber called the reticulum. Any objects that are unusual to the goat’s diets are settled out in this compartment. The particles that have fermented pass into the omasum, this removes the water for the food and absorbs nutrients that help supply energy to the goat, this are called volatile fatty acids. The particles then move into what is known as the true stomach, this is where the digestion process becomes similar to that of a human because the food is then digested by the stomach acids. The left-over particles are moved down the small intestine where majority of the nutrients are absorbed by the body. They venous blood coming from the pancreas, spleen, small intestine and the stomach all goes into the portal vein. This is so that the liver gets whatever has been absorbed f...

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... of meat from baby hippos and fish to zebra and big cats. (Goosey, 2007)
Dental formula and total dentition: 5-5-5 to 5-5-6/7 (Corfe, 2013)
How the animal is adapted for its diet in terms of:
Teeth shape and size: crocodiles do not chew, they only tear or rip meat and then they swallow so they have needle-like teeth. (Anon., 2013)
Length and complexity of digestive system: the crocodile rips up its food and then swallows it. The digestive system has two chambers, one is a powerful muscular compartment and the other is high acidic. In the stomach a very strong acid helps break-down the meat and bones. (Anon., n.d.) pH of stomach: low stomach pH of 1.2-2.5
Feeding habits – how much eaten and how often they eat: a crocodile can go for 58days without eating by surviving on stored fat. A crocodile should eat about, maximum, half their body weight. (Anon., 2013)

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