An extra organ
All animals are essentially ‘digesting tubes’: a tube from mouth to anus that converts food into energy. The construction of that tube – the digestive tract – determines what each animal can eat.
Foregut-fermenting animals benefit most from their partnership with bacteria, which are made up of proteins and produce beneficial vitamins and fatty acids. They get to digest the bacteria population and the beneficial nutrients as a supplement to their diet! Who wouldn’t want that?
The model is an abstracted tube that runs from the mouth to the anus, showing the three sites of bacterial fermentation depending on the type of animal. Depending on the site of fermentation, the animal is called a foregut fermenter, a hindgut fermenter or a large intestine fermenter.
Look at the colors on the model:
Mouth and oesophagus
1
Foregut or crop (foregut fermenters: cow, hoatzin – a species of bird)
Stomach
Small intestine
2
Appendix (hindgut fermenters: horse, rabbit)
3
Large intestine (large intestine fermenters: human, pig)
Rectum and anus
Next to it is a model of a body with a modified digestive system. Do you see the extra orange stomach? This houses the new population of bacteria that will help us to pre-digest plants, after which we digest the bacteria and the beneficial nutrients they produce.
Would you be open to having an extra organ to proactively adapt to being a more sustainable digesting tube? To be less dependent on animal protein, pre-processing of food and to get more energy from plant-based foods?
Did you know that
red pandas have already made such an adaptation? They were originally carnivores but now mainly eat bamboo. During the process of evolution, their digestive system has adapted with an enlarged appendix and new types of bacteria so that they can survive by eating bamboo, which although abundant is poor in nutrients.