Biology Quiz on Feeding Mechanisms and Adaptations

Animals that obtain food by consuming small particles suspended in water or sediment.

Animals that create a current of water to capture food particles.

Animals that ingest larger, solid pieces of food.

Animals that eat dirt, mud, or sand.

Animals that hunt and kill other animals for food.

Animals that eat plants for food.

Animals that obtain food by consuming liquids like nectar, blood, or cell sap.

These animals absorb dissolved food through their body surface.

They have specialized structures like ctenidia and labial palps. Cilia create a water current that brings in food particles, which then pass through the gills and are sorted by the labial palps before entering the mouth.

Their pharynx, a large tube with gill slits, is used for food collection. Cilia draw in water through the slits, and food particles get trapped on the endostyle. These particles are then transported to the midgut for digestion.

These larval frogs possess septa and vela in their pharynx that act as filters. Mucus traps food particles, forming a food string that gets swallowed.

Herring and Mackerel have long, thin gill rakers that prevent small creatures like copepods from escaping.

These whales have baleen plates in their mouths that act as filters. They strain out small creatures like krill by opening their mouths and taking in large amounts of water.

Filter feeding is a method where animals use structures like comb-like lamellae on their bills to strain small food particles from water, such as plankton.

The broad-billed prion uses its comb-like lamellae on its bill to filter plankton from the water.

Sedentary polychaete worms like Terebella have hollow tentacles with cilia which collect detritus from deposited sediment.

Terebella's tentacles have cilia that move detritus towards their mouths, while muscles control the food groove for efficient transport.

Animals like earthworms, lugworms and the acornworm use a proboscis to burrow and ingest soil, which contains nutrients.

Earthworms have specialized structures like a crop and a gizzard to store and grind soil before digestion in their long intestine.

Herbivores are animals that eat plants for food. Examples include gastropod molluscs, insects, and herbivorous mammals.

Gastropods like snails and slugs have a radula, a ribbon of teeth, to scrape algae and vegetation for food.

The process by which a gastropod's radula is constantly worn down and replaced from the back.

A polymer of mannose units found in brown algae.

A powerful, muscular chamber in herbivorous insects that grinds plant material.

The space between the incisors and premolars in herbivorous mammals.

The large, chisel-like incisors of rodents and lagomorphs used for gnawing.

Animals that eat already dead animals.

The ability to catch and seize prey, often involving pursuit.

A type of mollusc, like whelks and cone shells, that kill other molluscs and fish by drilling holes in their shells using a sharp radula.

A specialized structure in certain gastropods that contains a radula at its tip and is used for drilling into the shells of other molluscs.

A toothed, tongue-like structure found in molluscs used for scraping, cutting, or drilling.

A type of venomous mollusc that hunts fish by shooting arrow-shaped teeth that inject a powerful neurotoxin.

The process by which cephalopods, like squid and octopus, use their tentacles with suckers to capture and hold prey.

A sharp, beak-like structure found in cephalopods, like squid and octopus, used for tearing and cutting prey.

A neurotoxin produced by some cephalopods, such as squid and octopus, to paralyze their prey.

Carnivores employ sharp, pointed teeth and claws for catching and ripping apart prey.

The process used by cephalopods to move food from the beak into the pharynx.

Some carnivores use proteolytic enzymes to break down prey outside their bodies, turning it into a liquid before ingestion.

Cnidarians, like jellyfish, use nematocysts, stinging cells, to paralyze their prey.

Proboscis worms have a rapidly extending proboscis with jaws that grab and hold prey.

Errant polychaetes, like Nereis worms, use paragnaths or dentricles to crush prey.

Starfish use their tube feet to pry open bivalve shells and then insert their stomachs to digest the prey.

Polymorphic Cnidarians, such as the Portuguese man-of-war, use feeding polyps to digest prey externally.

Nematocysts come in three types: penetrants that inject toxins, volvents that coil around prey, and glutinants that stick to prey.