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In Zoology, a folivore is an animal that specializes in eating leaves.
Examples of folivorous animals:
- Mammals: okapis, sloths, koalas and various species of monkey.
- Birds: The Hoatzin of the Amazon region and the Kakapo of New Zealand
- Reptiles: Iguanas *
- Insects: various kinds of caterpillars, sawflies, beetles, and Orthoptera
Mature leaves contain a high proportion of hard-to-digest cellulose and relatively little energy. For this reason folivorous mammals tend to have long digestive tracts and slow metabolisms. Many enlist the help of symbiotic bacteria to release the nutrients in their diet.
Other organisms, almost exclusively insects, avoid plant defenses by feeding within the tissues of the leaves themselves, selectively eating only the layers that have the least amount of cellulose. Such species are called leaf miners. The precise pattern formed by the feeding tunnel is very often diagnostic for which kind of insect is responsible, sometimes even to genus level. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths (Lepidoptera) and flies (Diptera), though some beetles and wasps also exhibit this behavior.
See also
External links
"Folivore"