Organisms use five primary feeding modes: liquid feeding, filter feeding, bulk feeding, deposit feeding, and phagocytosis. Liquid feeders include hummingbirds and mosquitoes, while filter feeders include sponges and whales. Most organisms are bulk feeders, while deposit feeders consume food particles in soil. Phagocytosis is common among unicellular organisms and involves enveloping and digesting another cell.
The five primary feeding modes used by organisms are liquid feeding, filter feeding, bulk feeding, deposit feeding, and phagocytosis, in approximate order of commonality. It is very difficult to find a power method that does not fall under one of these power modes, although there are many sub-categories within each.
Fluid feeding, the rarest of feeding modalities, involves sucking the fluids from another plant or animal. Like all other modes of primary nutrition, it is used by herbivores, carnivores and omnivores alike. Some well-known liquid feeders include hummingbirds, aphids, spiders, ticks, leeches, vampire bats, and mosquitoes. Because many filter feeders feed on blood, they are unpopular with humans and other targeted mammals. Some feed only on the fluids of insects or plants, however.
Filter feeding is the feeding mode found among sponges, moon jellies, krill, mysids, three species of sharks, and many species of whales, such as the fanatic. Of all the feed modes, this may be one of the simplest: Instead of requiring predatory or precision action, the filter feeder simply exposes its filters – which take on many different shapes – and sifts them through the particles of food. The success of one of the simplest animals, sponges, is a testament to the power of filter feeding.
A much more common mode of feeding than the previous two and the predominant mode for most of the organisms familiar to us is mass feeding. Mass feeding is consuming pieces or the whole body of other animals or plants. Most mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles are bulk feeders, usually consuming plants but sometimes other animals as well. Carnivores specialize specifically in hunting, killing and eating other animals. Some animals, such as humans, are omnivores and eat both plants and other animals.
Depot feeding consists of consuming food particles in the soil. Because they usually consume detritus, most deposit feeders are fecivore. A diverse range of terrestrial arthropods, including many beetles and mites, are deposit feeders. The earthworm might be the archetypal example of a deposit feeder, as it consumes large amounts of soil and plays a vital role in breaking down dead plant matter into humus. It is considered more common than mass feeding due to the huge number and diversity of soil organisms that exist.
Phagocytosis is the most common mode of nutrition among many unicellular organisms, such as the amoeba. It consists of a cell completely enveloping another cell and digesting it using a lysosome. Phagocytes of the human immune system use phagocytosis to consume invaders such as bacteria. Most heterotrophic (non-photosynthesizing) unicellular organisms use phagocytosis as a means of obtaining food.
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