Question

An animal that feeds upon organic matter, dead insects, and its own cutoff cuticle maybe
A. Herbivorous
B. Scavenger
C. Omnivorous
D. Carnivorous

Answer 1

Hint: Animal are living beings and require food for sustenance and nourishment. Carbohydrates are the basic source of energy consumed by animals. The nutritional requirements of animals are complex and extensive. Other nutrients include lipids, nucleic acids, proteins, minerals, and vitamins.

Complete answer:

Animals based on their diet consumption are classified into herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores.
-Herbivorous: Herbivores are animals that consume a plant-based diet. They derive their energy from plant sources only. They have special digestive systems that allow the digestion and metabolism of different plants. These animals are anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant materials, such as grass, foliage or marine algae. For example, a horse has flat teeth that are adapted to grinding or rasping grass, tea bark and other tough plant materials.
-Carnivorous: Carnivores are animals that derive their energy from meat or animal tissue, either through hunting or scavenging. Carnivores are of two kinds; obligate carnivores and facultative carnivores. Obligate carnivores derive their energy and nutritional requirements solely from animal flesh. Whereas, facultative carnivores also consume non-animal food. A carnivore is an apex predator, i.e. it is not hunted or preyed upon by other animals. For example, a lion hunts their prey for food, while vultures or hyenas do not hunt and instead scavenge because they lack physical characters to bring down prey.
-Omnivorous: Omnivores are animals that consume both animal meat and plants. They do consume plants but not all types of plants as they cannot digest some of the substances present in the plant.
Omnivores are subcategorized based on their feeding behaviours into frugivores, insectivores and granivores. Frugivores are animal that thrives mostly on raw fruits, roots, nuts and seeds. For example, maned wolves and orang-utans. Insectivores are animals or plants that feed on insects. For instance,
anteaters, armadillos, etc. Granivores are animals that feed on the seeds of plants as an exclusive
food source. For example, mice.
-Scavengers: Scavengers are animals that mostly consume decaying biomass, such as meat or rotting
plant material. They consume dead organisms that have died from causes other than predation, i.e.
the scavenger did not kill the bodies they consumed. By consuming dead animal and plant material,
scavengers play an important role in the ecosystem. For example, flies, vultures, striped hyenas, etc.
are some scavengers.

Therefore, the answer is (B) Scavenger.

Note: Vulture is a type of bird that eats decaying flesh. Carrion beetle is a species of insects that can eat flesh and bat droppings. Blowflies are insects that munch on dead parts of live animals such as the dead flesh around their wounds, which could lead to infections to the wound. Grass contains cellulose which can only be digested by ruminant herbivores. These are animals that have four stomachs instead of one. Due to this, a carnivore can’t consume plant-based sources for energy and nutrition.