Classification of animals regarding food

Author: Peter Berry
Date Of Creation: 15 February 2021
Update Date: 28 June 2024
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Content

The animals' diet is very varied and is related to adaptation to the ecosystem in which they live and, therefore, to their way of life and anatomy. THE food diversification it is, in fact, one of the reasons why the animal kingdom is so diverse and was able to colonize all possible environments.

In nature, we find all kinds of animals that feed on leaves, roots, corpses, blood, and even feces. do you want to meet them? In this PeritoAnimal article, we show you a complete classificationthat of animals regarding food.

animal feed

Animals, during their evolutionary process, have adapted to living in many different environments and consume the foods that were available. Many specialize in eating a single type of food, avoiding competition with other organisms. Due to this, the animal feed it is enormously varied.


To better understand the evolutionary process of each animal and how it relates to its environment (ecology), it is necessary to know the classification of animals according to their diet. Let's start!

Classification of animals regarding food

The classification of animals according to their diet is based on the type of matter from which they get their food. So we have the following types of animals:

  • Carnivorous animals.
  • Herbivorous animals.
  • Omnivorous animals.
  • Decomposing animals.
  • Parasites.
  • Coprophages.

Although the best known are the first three, we'll talk about each of them next.

carnivorous animals

Carnivorous animals are those that feed mainly on animal matter. They are also known as secondary consumers due to the fact that usually feed on herbivorous animals. To achieve this, they present different strategies such as high speed, formation of herds, silent walking or camouflage.


Carnivores assimilate most of the food they consume, as it is very similar to their own matter. So they can eat very little food and survive for a long time without eating anything. However, these animals spend a lot of energy getting food, and they tend to spend a lot of time resting.

Types of Carnivorous Animals

According to way of obtaining the food, we can find two types of carnivores:

  • predators: are those who obtain their food from live prey. To do this, they must search for them, chase them and capture them, which is a huge waste of energy. Some examples of predatory animals are felines (Felidae) and ladybugs (Coccinellidae).
  • butchers: feed on other dead animals. The scavenger animals do not need to expend energy on predation, although they have the body prepared to avoid contracting infections. For example, they usually have a very low pH gastric acid. Vultures (Accipitridae) and the larvae of some flies (Sharcophagidae) are examples of carrion animals.

According to your main food, we have the following types of carnivores:


  • General Carnivores: are animals that feed on any type of meat. An example is the black kite (milvusmigrants), which can consume insects, small mammals and even carrion.
  • Insectivores or entomographs: mainly eat insects. This is the case, for example, of many species of spiders (Arachnid).
  • Myrmecophages: feed on ants, such as anteaters (vermilingua).
  • Piscivores or ichthyophagous: are animals that eat, above all, fish. An example is the kingfisher (Alcedo atthis).
  • Planktonic:Many aquatic predators primarily feed on plankton. This is the main food that whales eat, as well as other cetaceans.

herbivorous animals

herbivorous animals feed mainly on vegetable matter, that's why they have chewing mouthparts. They are also known as primary consumers and are the food of many carnivorous animals. For this reason, herbivores run very fast, form flocks, are able to camouflage themselves and have other defense strategies, such as animal aposematism.

The advantage of herbivores is the great ease with which they obtain food, which means that they have a very low energy expenditure. However, these animals can only assimilate and take advantage of a small amount of the plant matter they consume. therefore they need a lot of food.

Types of herbivorous animals

Herbivorous animals are classified according to the type of plant matter on which they feed. Many consume a main food, although they may eat other types of food more sporadically. Here are some types of herbivores:

  • General Herbivores: they feed on all types of plants and even many types of plant tissue. One example is large ruminants, such as the cow (good taurus), which eats both herbaceous plants and woody plant branches.
  • Folivores:mainly feed on leaves. For example, the mountain gorilla (gorillaeggplant eggplant) and the caterpillars of many species of moths (Lepidoptera).
  • Frugivores:Its main food is fruits. Some bats, like the eidolon helvum, and the fruit fly larvae (Keratitiscapitata) are examples of frugivorous animals.
  • Granivores: Seeds are your favorite food. Birds with short and wide beaks feed mainly on seeds, such as the finch (chlorischloris). Another example is the ants Barbarus Messor.
  • Xylophages: are animals that feed on wood. The best known example is termites (Isoptera), although there are many other wood-eating insects, such as beetles. Dendroctonus spp.
  • Rhizophages: its main food is the roots. Some rhizophagous animals are the larvae of many insects, such as the family beetles. Scarabaeidae and the carrot fly (psilapink and).
  • Nectarivores: consume the nectar that the flowers offer in exchange for pollination. Among the nectarivorous animals, we find bees (anthophila) and the flower flies (Syrphidae).

omnivorous animals

Omnivorous animals are those that feed both animal and vegetable matter. For this, they have all kinds of teeth, both canines for tearing the flesh, and molars for chewing plants. Are opportunistic animals and with a generalist digestive apparatus.

Their varied diet allows omnivorous animals to adapt to all kind of environment, whenever the weather permits. Therefore, they often become invasive animals when they reach new places.

Types of omnivorous animals

Omnivorous animals are very diverse, so there are not exactly types of omnivorous animals. However, as the only limitation to their diet is their way of life, we can classify them according to place where they live. In this case, we will have the following types of omnivores:

  • terrestrial omnivores: the most successful omnivores on land are mice (Mus spp.), the wild boar (susscrofa) and the human being (homo sapiens).
  • aquatic omnivores: many species of piranhas (Characidae) are omnivorous. Also some turtles, such as the green turtle (Chelonia mydas), which is omnivorous only during its youth.
  • flying omnivores: Birds with long and medium-width beaks (non-specialized beaks) are omnivorous, that is, they feed on both insects and seeds. Some examples of omnivorous birds are the house sparrow (passenger domesticus) and the magpie (Cock Cock).

Other forms of animal feed

There are many other forms of animal feed that are quite unknown, but not unimportant. Within the classification of animals according to their food, we can add the following types:

  • Decomposers.
  • Parasites.
  • Coprophages.

Decomposers or scavenger animals

The decomposing animals feed on remnants of organic matter, such as dry leaves or dead branches. During their feeding, they break down matter and discard what doesn't serve them. Among its waste, there is a large amount of nutrients that serve as food for plants and many types of bacteria fundamental to the formation of soil.

Among the decomposing animals, we find some types of annelids, such as earthworms (Lubricidae) and most snake lice (diplopod).

parasitic animals

Parasites are living beings that "steal" nutrients from other organismss. For this, they live attached to their skin (ectoparasites) or inside them (endoparasites). These animals maintain a relationship with their hosts called parasitism.

According to its guest or host, we can distinguish two types of parasitic animals:

  • parasites of animals: animal ectoparasites are hematophagous, they feed on blood, like fleas (Shiphonaptera); while endoparasites feed directly on the nutrients present in your digestive system or other organs. An example of an endoparasite is the tapeworm (Taenia spp.).
  • plant parasites: are animals that feed on the sap of plants. This is the case with most aphids and bed bugs (hemiptera).

dung animals

Coprophages feed on the feces of other animals. One example is the larvae of dung beetles such as the Scarabaeus laticollis. Adults of these types of beetle drag a ball of feces in which they lay their eggs. Thus, future larvae can feed on it.

Animals that eat feces can be considered decomposers. Like them, they are fundamental to the organic matter recycling and his return to the trophic network.

If you want to read more articles similar to Classification of animals regarding food, we recommend that you enter our Curiosities section of the animal world.