Feeding is the process by which organisms, typically animals, obtain food. Terminology often uses either the suffix -vore from Latin vorare, meaning 'to devour', or phagy, from Greek φαγειν, meaning 'to eat'.
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The evolution of different feeding strategies is varied with some feeding strategies evolving several times in independent lineages. In terrestrial vertebrates, the earliest forms were large amphibious piscivores 400 million years ago. While amphibians continued to feed on fish and later insects, reptiles began exploring two new food types, other tetrapods (carnivory), and later, plants (herbivory). Carnivory was a natural transition from insectivory for medium and large tetrapods, requiring minimal adaptation (in contrast, a complex set of adaptations was necessary for feeding on highly fibrous plant materials).[1]
The specialization of organisms towards specific food sources is one of the major causes of evolution of form and function, such as:
There are many modes of feeding that animals exhibit, including:
Polyphagy is the ability of an animal to eat a variety of food, whereas monophagy is the intolerance of every food except of one specific type (see generalist and specialist species).
Another classification refers to the specific food animals specialize in eating, such as:
The eating of non-living or decaying matter:
There are also several unusual food sources which can give rise to opportunistic or desperate feeding behaviours, such as:
Some animals exhibit hoarding and caching behaviours in which they store or hide food for later use.
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