Ruminant
mammal that gets nutrients from plants by fermenting them with microbes in a specialized stomach before digestion / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A ruminant is an ungulate that eats and digests plant-based food such as grass.
Quick Facts Scientific classification, Families ...
Ruminants | |
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White-tailed deer | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Artiodactyla |
Clade: | Cetruminantia |
Clade: | Ruminantiamorpha Spaulding et al., 2009 |
Suborder: | Ruminantia Scopoli, 1777 |
Families | |
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Ruminating mammals include cattle, goats, sheep, giraffes, bison, yaks, water buffalo, deer, camels, alpacas, llamas, wildebeest, antelope, pronghorn, and nilgai. All of them are Artiodactyla, cloven-hoofed animals.[1]
The word "ruminant" comes from the Latin word ruminare which means "to chew over again". They have a more complex digestive system than other vegetarians. Digestion of food is always done mainly by microorganisms, and in ruminants it is digested twice.
An example of a grass-eater which is not a ruminant is the horse. Horse excrement leaves the work of digestion half-done. This is very obvious to see in comparison to that of a ruminant.