Herbivores Animals Name List, Examples, Chart

Herbivore Definition: Herbivores are animals that only eat plant-based materials, such as leaves, fruits, stems, seeds, nectar, roots, bark, etc.

The term “herbivore” refers to animals that chew leaves, and insects that harm a plant by sucking sap, as well as more benign species that only gather pollen, nectar, or plant resin.

Both terms have Greek roots: “phyton,” which means “plant,” and “phagein,” which means “to eat or devour.”

There are thousands of herbivorous animals in the ecosystem.

Herbivores Animals Name-List
Animal	Its Feed
Antelope	Bushes, smaller trees, and grass.
Beaver	Leaves, twigs, shrubs, ferns, aquatic plants, grasses, crops, etc.
Bison	Grasses, weeds, and leafy plants.
Buffalo	Grasses, rice straw, weeds, and leafy plants.
Camel	Grass, grains, and wheat.
Cow	Grasses, rice straw, weeds, and leafy plants.
Deer	Leaves, twigs, shoots of plants, vines, and rarely grass.
Donkey	Barley straw, hay, and grass.
Iguanas	Leaves from trees and vines.
Bees	Pollen and nectar.
Earthworms	Decaying roots and leaves.
Rhinoceroses	Grass, twigs, leaves, and small branches.
Rabbits	Hay, grass, fresh vegetables, few pellets
Goat	Weeds,  grasses, hay,  grains, and small tree barks.
Oxe	Grasses, rice straw, weeds, and leafy plants.
Few Birds (sugarbirds, Cassowaries, Canada Geese, etc)	Fruits, seeds, etc.
Herbivorous Fish (Acanthurus Lineatus, Acanthurus Nigrofuscus, Parrotfish, and Unicornfishes).	Algae and leaves of small plants.

However, the herbivores have been separated into several groups based on their feeding strategies.

Animal	Its Feed	Examples
Algivores	Algae	Herbivorous fish
Detritovore	Decaying plant materials	Few earthworms, etc.
Frugivores	Fruit	Orangutans, hammer-headed bats, gorilla, etc.
Folivores	Leaves	Iguanas, koalas, etc.
Nectarivores	Nectar	Bees, sugarbirds, etc.
Granivores	Seeds	Finches, sparrows, etc.
Palynivores	Pollen	Many insects and some mites etc.
Mucivores	Plant fluids, mainly sap	Some insects and birds.
Xylophages	Wood	Beavers, gribbles, wood-boring beetles, etc.

21 Examples of Herbivorous Birds

1. Common Ostrich
2. Evening Grosbeak
3. Hoatzin
4. House Finch
5. Hummingbirds
6. Parrots
7. Oriole
8. Goldfinch
9. Gray Geese
10. Macaws
11. Canada Geese
12. Pine Siskin
13. Red Finches
14. Large Waterfowl
15. Nene
16. Oilbird
17. Somali Ostrich
18. Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos
19. Zebra Finch
20. Rock Ptarmigan

14 Examples of Herbivorous Reptiles

1. Desert Tortoise
2. Sahara Spiny-Tailed Lizard
3. Sinaloa Scrub
4. Solomon Island Skink
5. Argentina Tortoise
6. Chuckwalla
7. Desert Iguana
8. Uromastyx
9. Yellow-Footed Tortoise
10. Dryland Tortoise
11. Green Iguana
12. Mediterranean Tortoise
13. Morrocoy
14. Prehensile-tailed skinks

7 Examples of Herbivorous Insects

1. Butterflies
2. Gall wasps
3. Moths
4. Leaf-mining flies
5. Plant bugs
6. Weevils
7. Leaf beetles

Examples of Herbivorous Invertebrates

1. Snails
2. Millipedes
3. Worms
4. Insects
5. Slugs
6. Mites
   

Well-known herbivorous animals

1. Mula
2. Bongo
3. Camel
4. Deer
5. Bumblebee
6. Iguana
7. Gorilla
8. Moth
9. Grasshopper
10. Antelopes
11. Manatee
12. Kakapo
13. Butterfly
14. Honey bee
15. Koala
16. Hare
17. Okapi
18. Giraffe
19. Ascidias
20. Impale
21. Bison
22. Dugongo
23. Capybara
24. Kangaroo
25. Fruit Bats
26. Giant Panda Bear
27. Cow
28. Goat
29. Elephant
30. Bushbuck
31. Rabbit
32. Butter
33. Horse
34. chinchilla
35. Howler Monkey
36. Buffalo
37. Call
38. Hippopotamus
39. Beaver
40. Caterpillar

Facts and Characteristics of Herbivorous Animals

• Entomologists frequently refer to any of these dietary strategies using the noun “phytophagy” and the adjective “phytophagous.”
• Herbivores are animals that consume plant tissues or plant-based products.
• Herbivory has had both positive and negative impacts on plants over evolutionary time.
• The ability of flowering plants (the Angiosperms) to draw in insect herbivores and use them as pollinators have undoubtedly been advantageous.
• However, some insects can also act as carriers of plant diseases.
• Animals have had to adjust to many of the traits that plants have in order to use them as a food source.
• To defend themselves against toxic substances found in plants, herbivores must have developed detoxification pathways.
• Animal herbivores have the ability to, directly and indirectly, change the composition of plant communities.
• Some herbivores strengthen the defenses of plants.
• Certain plants can exhibit symbiotic interactions with ants that shield their host plants from other herbivores and also regulate the growth of nearby plants through weeding and pruning.
• Plants have a variety of external structures, including leaves, stems, flower components, roots, fruits, and seeds.
• Various plant species may have different versions of each of these structures. Therefore, herbivores should have some traits that enable them to exploit these structures. 
• These include hard limbs for digging, saw-like, piercing, or cutting organs (like the chewing mouthparts of insects), and appendages (like claws, spines, or suckers) that allow them to cling to vertical or upside-down surfaces. They should also have wings to reach the tops of the tallest plants.
• The majority and widest variety of herbivores are insects. According to estimates, herbivores make up about half of all living insects.
• To eat hard plant material, herbivorous animals use a variety of strategies.
• These include forming partnerships with other organisms and avoiding hard plant material by consuming plant fluids.
• Other strategies include using chewing mouthparts to gnaw on tough parts and eating soft internal tissue.

References

1. Katja Poveda,Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter,Stefan Scheu,Teja Tscharntke (2005). Wiley Online Library (doi.org/10.1111/j.0030-1299.2005.13664.x)
2. M. Bonkowski & S. Scheu, 2008. Biotic Interactions in the Rhizosphere: Effects on Plant Growth and Herbivore Development. Ecological Studies, vol 173. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. (doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74004-9_4)
3. Australian flora and vegetation statistics, Australian National Botanic Gardens. Available online at (http://www.anbg.gov.au/anbg/australian-flora-statistics.html).