Vegetation is surprisingly good at feeding and creating big animals.
The largest in the ape family – the Mountain Gorilla – is a vegetarian, eating only grass and vegetation. Despite their plant-based diet, they are up to 10 times stronger than a human, and have a bite force twice as strong as a lion!
The largest land mammal – the African Savannah Elephant – is a vegetarian, too. We all know about the legendary strength, intelligence and emotional capabilities of these giants.
The largest animal ever known to walk the earth – Argentinosaurus – also a vegetarian. At a mind-boggling length of up to 39.7 metres (130 ft), and a staggering 96.4 tonnes (106.3 short tons), this leviathan shows us how plant material can be more than enough to provide an animal with sufficient nutrients to thrive on planet earth.
Cows, along with many, many other animals, eat plant matter to feed not only themselves, but their vital gut microflora. In fact, most plant matter eaten by any of us higher order animals, is not actually “eaten” by us. It’s eaten (broken down) by our intestinal bacteria buddies. We then use what they have broken down, while also eating them (the bacteria), to get our nutrients. It’s an incredibly interesting situation in there!
That’s why it’s such a big deal (read: digestive… shall we say “upset”) when you eat a type of food you are not used to, or to which you are “intolerant.” Because you don’t have the right bacterial colonies to break it down, your system can’t deal with it. Same thing when we abruptly change the food type of our pets or livestock. Changes to the diet must be made gradually so as to build up sufficient bacterial workers in the gut to utilize the new food source.
Cows can grow so big because their digestive system is balanced in a way that allows them, like many other big, strong, behemoths today and in earth’s history, to utilize plants in order to live long and prosper.
Credit : Quora
Picture Credit : Google
