The 4 Mammals With The Most Appetite
Maintaining body heat is not free, as it requires constant energy burn. This is the case of endothermic animals and, more specifically, of mammals with more appetites that you will know in this article.
Either because of their metabolic speed or their size, these animals eat large amounts of food. Many times, however, these proportions are enormous beyond the volume, especially if the ratio of intake to weight of the animal is taken into account. Curious? Keep reading.
The 4 mammals with the most appetite
Mammals are animals with a property that is commonly known as “warm-blooded”, that is, they maintain body temperature through internal processes – burning energy – and do not depend on the environment for this.
What does this imply? Well, a body that has to burn energy to stay warm needs much more fuel in the form of organic matter. For this reason, the mammals that we present to you in the following lines eat large amounts of food.
1. Blue whale ( Balaenoptera musculus Intermedia)
The logical thing was to start with the highest figures: the blue whale, the largest animal on the planet, can consume up to 4 tons of krill a day. Sound like a lot to you? In reality, compared to its weight, it is not too much, as this cetacean weighs around 180 tons.
Also, blue whales are very picky about their food. The energy expenditure they do to swim quickly to the krill banks has to be worth it: if they judge that one of them is too small, they pass by.
2. One of the most voracious animals: the tiger ( Panthera tigris)
This big cat does not eat every day, but when it does, it is big: tigers can consume up to 40 kilos of meat in one sitting. Their large size, coupled with their slow speed – they are more climbers than runners – make hunting ineffective, so they should eat all they can.
Compared to other large cats – such as the lion – the tiger consumes much more meat. His solitary lifestyle means that he doesn’t have to share his prey with anyone. Although other species eat less, teamwork is more successful when it comes to getting prey.
3. African elephant ( Loxodonta africana )
The largest land animal in the world is also one of the mammals with the most appetite: the African elephant consumes about 200 kilos of food a day, specifically. These giant pachyderms spend most of the day feeding and, in addition, much of the plant matter they eat is not used, but is expelled with the feces.
4. Dwarf shrew
The last animal on this list had to break the record: the dwarf shrew is considered the animal with the most appetite. Although it does not usually weigh more than 30 grams, it spends most of the day feeding on insects. If we talk about proportions, this small mammal eats 3 times its weight a day.
Its small size implies a very fast metabolism, so you must feed continuously to continue burning energy. Every moment this shrew is not eating, it is in danger of starvation.
Final thoughts on mammals with the biggest appetite
As you have seen with this last example, how much an animal eats depends largely on the rate at which it burns energy to maintain its homeostasis. Therefore, in nature there are other extremely voracious animals for this same reason, such as hummingbirds.
Also, if you take a closer look, all species have some way of maintaining balance with their environment, regardless of how much they eat: they hunt infrequently, they feed on very abundant resources – such as krill or vegetation – or simply They are very small. There is much to learn in this regard.
