Assessing the Relationship Between Digestive Physiology and Activity Budget in Captive Ungulate Herbivores
Logan Merrett
0912529

Introduction:
The wildebeest or the Connochaetes taurinus Burchell is a herbivore that has a life span of about 20 years, the mammal can grow up to 1.4 metres and weigh between 330-550 pounds. (National Geographic) In the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem of Kenya and Tanzania is found western white-bearded wildebeest, in Kenya and Tanzania east of the Gregory Rift is found the eastern white-bearded races and south of the Zambezi River is found brindled, or blue, race. (AWF) Wildebeests are nomadic as they move in herds and eat a lot so they need to keep moving in order to have a favourable supply of grass and water. …show more content…
(Illinois Edu) Foregut fermenters can extract more nutrients from their food, therefore have to eat less to get as much energy as a hindgut fermenter. (Illinois Edu) “The foregut fermenter herbivores are a lot more efficient as the food is digested on the first pass through the digestive system.” (VetSci, 2011) As seen in figure 1, the wildebeest grazes less than the zebra, however does a lot more of everything else. As said in the hypothesis, the foregut fermenter has a much more effective digestive system and therefore needs to consume less, and use less energy to digest food as there is less to digest and the digestive system is more efficient. Even if the wildebeest were to eat the same amount of food as the zebra, the wildebeest would still get more nutrients out of what it had consumed than the zebra because the food that is consumed is digested on the first pass through the digestive system. As shown in figure 2, the zebra spends most of it’s time grazing, this is because in order to have energy and nutrients in it’s system it need to consume a larger amount of food than the wildebeest. Zebras also migrate about 800 miles more per year than wildebeests, this is because the zebra consumes more food, and therefore suppresses their food resources more frequently. “A …show more content…
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