What do omnivorous animals eat

The brown bear eats berries, roots, fungi, grasses, fish, carrion, small mammals, and insects. Unlike the black bear, the brown bear is a hunter. It is very good at catching fish and it often uses its long claws to dig insects out of rotting logs and small mammals out of their burrows.

Some brown bears in the Canadian Rockies hunt larger animals like moose , elk and goats. The primary food source for the polar bear is seals. It also eats fish, seabirds, and sometimes, reindeer. In the summer it also eats berries and other plants. Meat and Vegetables Some animals eat both plants and animals. LightHawk: Destination Conservation E. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

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Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives. A food chain outlines who eats whom. A food web is all of the food chains in an ecosystem.

Each organism in an ecosystem occupies a specific trophic level or position in the food chain or web. Producers, who make their own food using photosynthesis or chemosynthesis, make up the bottom of the trophic pyramid.

Primary consumers, mostly herbivores, exist at the next level, and secondary and tertiary consumers, omnivores and carnivores, follow. At the top of the system are the apex predators: animals who have no predators other than humans. Help your class explore food chains and webs with these resources. A scavenger is an organism that consumes mostly decaying biomass, such as meat or rotting plant matter. An omnivore is an organism that regularly consumes a variety of material, including plants, animals, algae, and fungi.

They range in size from tiny insects like ants to large creatures—like people. Join our community of educators and receive the latest information on National Geographic's resources for you and your students. There are many benefits in being an omnivore. Omnivorous animals are better able to survive due their ability to eat both animals and plants.

This means that if one food source is scarce, they can eat the other. It may not be their favorite food, but it will keep them alive. Another benefit is that omnivores can be opportunistic, especially scavengers.

Scavengers can eat from dead animals, raid trash receptacles or consume half-eaten fruit that another animal has left behind. Amy Brantley has been a writer since , contributing to numerous online publications. She specializes in business, finance, food, decorating and pets.

By using the site, you agree to the uses of cookies and other technology as outlined in our Policy, and to our Terms of Use. Definition An omnivore is a species that eats both plants and animals. Examples People might believe a species eats only meat or plant material, but there are more omnivores than they think.