What do mammals feed on?

Answer 1

There are over 5,000 species of placental mammals. Their diets vary. They can be carnivores, herbivores, insectivores, or omnivores. There is variation in diet within each of these groups (carnivores, etc.) as well.

Answer 2

This will depend upon what mammal you are referring to. Within generally recognized domesticated mammals, there are the following options:

Horses, cows, sheep and goats are herbivores - they will eat a variety of plant matter.

Pigs are omnivores - they will eat plants, bugs, small reptiles, or pretty much anything they can get their mouth around.

Cats and dogs are carnivores - they eat other animals such as rats or mice.

Answer 3

Besides placental mammals, there are two other groups of mammals: the monotremes and the marsupials.

Monotremes are egg-laying mammals, and include just the echidna and the platypus. They are fully mammals because they sitll feed their young on mothers' milk and, apart from their method of reproduction, share all other charactersitics with mammals.

Marsupials are mammals with pouches in which they rear their young. Marsupial young are characterised by being extremely small and undeveloped at birth. At birth, they take a long, arduous journey from the birth canal, driven purely by instinct, grabbing hold of the mother marsupial's fur which she has cleaned and made easier to traverse with saliva, to reach the pouch. Upon reaching the pouch, they latch onto a teat which swells in their mouth to prevent them from being accidentally dislodged during the mother's movements. There they stay for months, to complete their development.

Not all marsupials have pouches, e.g. the numbat has a mere flap of skin, but in animals where the pouch is absent, the young are still born undeveloped, and they cling by instinct to the underside of their mother's belly, still firmly attached to teats which swell in their mouths.

Female marsupials have two vaginas, or what are called paired lateral vaginae. These are for the purpose of transporting the sperm to the womb, but there is a midline pseudovaginal canal for actually giving birth. As well as two vaginas and two uteruses, female marsupials have two fallopian tubes and two cervixes. Most male marsupials, with the exception of the largest species, the Red Kangaroo, Eastern Grey and Western Grey Kangaroos, have a "bifurcated" or two-pronged penis to accommodate the females' two vaginas.

Answer 4

The diets of mammals are varied due to the large variety of mammals that exist. Some mammals eat only meat (carnivores), some eat only vegetation (vegetarians), and some eat both (omnivores).