The significance of unripe seeds and animal tissues in the protein nutrition of herbivores

Abstract

Many herbivorous animals selectively eat flowers and unripe fruit or seeds. Some preferentially eat new tissues growing from germinating seeds. This behaviour enables access to otherwise limited or unavailable amino acids that are necessary to sustain successful production and growth of young. For the same reason the diet of breeding females and neonates of many presumed strictly herbivorous animals is supplemented with animal protein. However, because these foods are often only eaten for limited periods, and make up only a small proportion of the total diet, they are usually dismissed as unimportant to the animals' nutrition. It is suggested that actively looking for such feeding may well reveal it to be far more common and important to the successful breeding of herbivores than has been thought in the past.