In Animals
Birds often employ regurgitation to feed their young. In the Blue-footed Booby, the chicks feed off of regurgitated fish from their parents. Only one chick can feed at a time using this method, so there is always the emergence of a brood hierarchy. The dominant chick, who is usually older, is almost always fed before the subordinate, younger chick, and so in times of food hardship, siblicide may occur, where the dominant chick kills its younger sibling in order to sequester all his parents' resources.
Regurgitation as a method of feeding is also seen in the Red-collared Widowbird.
Read more about this topic: Regurgitation (digestion)
Famous quotes containing the word animals:
“All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“If everything is perfect, language is useless. This is true for animals. If animals don’t speak, it’s because everything’s perfect for them. If one day they start to speak, it will be because the world has lost a certain sort of perfection.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)