hydradynamics
Feb. 28th, 2014 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thanateThere was a brief exchange on twitter involving giraffe hydras and whether they would eat ash trees or be convinced to eat emerald ash borers. The usual silliness, but in between helping the Megatherium figure out how to get her plastic chain links back into their bag,* my brain went off on a tangent.
-Most herbivores aren't as strictly vegetarian as all that; they'll cheerfully eat & metabolize whatever insects happen to be hanging out on the plants they're eating because insects are concentrated little packages of protein and nutrients.
-Mammals (see: giraffe) do most of their early/formative growth while nursing. (Biologically, humans are designed to nurse for somewhere around six or seven years, though obviously we don't have to.) Baby songbirds do most of their growing on a diet of huge quantities of insects (see above.)
-The only terrestrial creatures I can think of offhand that regrow severed body parts (tails) are salamanders & skinks, most of which are insectivores or omnivores who eat insects.
-Therefore, I think one could make a case for a mature mammalian hydra having increased insectivorous habits to support the metabolic demands of growing extra heads.
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*Just because you can see through it doesn't mean you can pass the link through the side, even if you put your other hand into the bag to grab it with. Good try, though.
-Most herbivores aren't as strictly vegetarian as all that; they'll cheerfully eat & metabolize whatever insects happen to be hanging out on the plants they're eating because insects are concentrated little packages of protein and nutrients.
-Mammals (see: giraffe) do most of their early/formative growth while nursing. (Biologically, humans are designed to nurse for somewhere around six or seven years, though obviously we don't have to.) Baby songbirds do most of their growing on a diet of huge quantities of insects (see above.)
-The only terrestrial creatures I can think of offhand that regrow severed body parts (tails) are salamanders & skinks, most of which are insectivores or omnivores who eat insects.
-Therefore, I think one could make a case for a mature mammalian hydra having increased insectivorous habits to support the metabolic demands of growing extra heads.
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*Just because you can see through it doesn't mean you can pass the link through the side, even if you put your other hand into the bag to grab it with. Good try, though.