The Ark Files - Strange table manners

Feasting and Christmas go hand in hand, and we often overdo things. But no human attempt at eating compares to the feasting habits of certain animals and plants.

Licking the plate clean

Sharp teeth and strong jaws are the tools of the trade for carnivores such as the big cats. But did you know that they also use their tongues to help them eat more efficiently? The tongues of these meat eaters are large, muscley and very rough. The cats use their tongues as rasps, firstly to remove the fur before they eat the large meat chunks and then literally to lick any remaining meat from the bones before chewing and swallowing it.

Waste not, want not

The Tasmanian Devil is well known for its ferocity and this includes its eating habits. The devil has a very large head with powerful jaw muscles which give it huge biting power. Devils scavenge on carrion and have been known to crawl into the carcasses of wallabies and wombats and eat them from the inside out - 22 were once seen feeding on and in a dead cow. They consume everything, guts, fur, bones, the lot. (They will even use their front paws to cram lengths of intestine into their mouths - just like messy spaghetti eaters.) The only things left behind are the teeth.

Clever beaks

The flower-piercer birds of South America are more fastidious in their table manners. These birds don't have very long beaks or tongues, so in order to reach the delicious but deep nectar of some flowers they have a special trick. They first latch onto the flower with a hook on the end of the upper beak, then they slice into its side using the razor-sharp bottom half. They can then insert their tongue, reach the sugary nectar and sip away.

The Green Imperial Pigeon can consume a nutmeg seed with a diameter of five centimetres. This is the only bird known that can unhinge its lower beak and expand its mouth vertically and sideways. The nutmeg seed it swallows is larger then its own head.

Straw please

Spiders have particularly gruesome eating habits, partially digesting their food before it even reaches their mouths. A spider's meal usually consists of small insects which it first captures and kills by biting and injecting with poison. Then whilst holding the corpse down with its fangs, the spider pours digestive enzymes, secreted from its stomach, over its meal. The insect's soft tissues are quickly broken down into a sort of thick soup and this liquid food is then sucked up into the spider's mouth and pumped into its stomach. All that remains is the crunchy, indigestible shell.

How do you like your eggs?

Some food requires drastic table manners. The Dwarf Mongoose from West Africa uses a rather sporting technique to deal with chicken eggs. It places its front paws over the egg spreads its hind legs and then hurls the egg backwards between them smashing it against a rock or tree.

The African Egg-eating Snake, like most snakes, can greatly increase its swallowing capacity by unhinging its lower jaw from the upper one. But this snake goes even further. It has sharp spikes inside its body which are attached to the top of its spine and that reach down into its throat. When the snake swallows an egg, these spines act as a tiny saw to slit open the shell. The yolk is digested and the crushed shell is brought back up and spat out.

Carnivorous plants

We usually think that animals use plants for food and not the other way around. But some special plants have actually evolved to eat animals, mainly insects. But how do these plants capture, eat and digest insects when they don't have legs, mouths or stomachs?

Pitcher plants live in bogs and their specialised leaves form a slippery tube which is half filled with water. They have bright colours and sweet nectar which attract their insect prey. Insects that fall into the tube can't climb out again because there are many stiff, downward pointing hairs in the 'throat' of the plant. The trapped insects drown and then the plant releases enzymes into the water which slowly digest the insects so they can be absorbed by the inside of the leaves... just as in a stomach!

Occasionally the bodies of larger animals such as frogs, mice, birds and even small monkeys have been found drowned and half digested in the 'stomach' of pitcher plants that live in jungles. Apparently these unfortunate creatures were already sick and lost their footing whilst having a drink from the plant and were too weak to climb out again.