Ruminantia
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Ruminantia includes many of the well-known large grazing or browsing mammals: among them cattle, goats, sheep, deer, and antelope. All members of the Ruminantia are ruminants: they digest food in two steps, chewing and swallowing in the normal way to begin with, and then regurgitating the semi-digested cud to re-chew it and thus extract the maximum possible food value.
Not all ruminants belong to the Ruminantia. Camels and llamas are among the exceptions, a suborder known as Tylopoda. Also, there are a number of other large grazing mammals that, while not strictly ruminants, have similar adaptations for surviving on large quantities of low-grade food. Kangaroos and horses are examples. For more information, visit the Wikipedia entry. Get back to Eutheria | ||
African buffalo | African forest buffalo | American bison |
Antelopes | Deers & allies | European bison |
Giraffe | Musk deers | Okapi |
Pronghorn | Saola | Sheep, goats & allies |
Synthetoceras | Water buffalo & allies' | Wild and domestic cattle |