Gizzard vs. teeth, it’s a tie: food-processing efficiency in herbivorous birds and mammals and implications for dinosaur feeding strategies

Fritz, J; Hummel, J; Kienzle, E; Wings, O; Streich, W J; Clauss, Marcus

doi:10.1666/10031.1

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Fritz, J., Hummel, J., Kienzle, E., Wings, O., Streich, W. J., & Clauss, M. (2011). Gizzard vs. teeth, it’s a tie: food-processing efficiency in herbivorous birds and mammals and implications for dinosaur feeding strategies. Paleobiology, 37(4), 577–586. https://doi.org/10.1666/10031.1

Abstract

Particle size reduction is a primary means of improving efficiency in herbivores. The mode of food particle size reduction is one of the main differences between herbivorous birds (gizzard) and mammals (teeth). For a quantitative comparison of the efficiency of food comminution, we investigated mean fecal particle sizes (MPS) in 14 herbivorous bird species and compared these with a data set of 111 non-ruminant herbivorous mammal species. In general MPS increased with body mass, but there was no significant difference between birds and