KiiT INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL BHUBANESWAR.

CHAPTER-02/NUTRITION IN ANIMAL
 Majority of animals take food in the form of solids. This form of nutrition in which food is eaten in
solid form is called holozoic nutrition.
 Animal nutrition includes nutrient requirement, mode of intake of food and its utilisation in the
body. Food consist of many components like carbohydrates, protein, fats, vitamins, minerals, water
and roughage.
 The complex substances cannot be utilised by our body as such. So they are broken down into
simpler substances is called Digestion.
 Different organisms use different methods to get food. There are special structures in each
organism for taking of food inside the body.

NAME OF THE KIND OF FOOD MODE OF FEEDING

ORGANISM
amoeba Small organisms capturing
spider Insects capturing
mosquito blood Piercing and Sucking
Snail Leaves and insects scraping
Ant Food particles Chewing
eagle Small animals Capturing and swallowing
Humming bird Nectar of flower Sucking
lice blood Sucking
butterfly Nectar of flower Sucking
House fly Food particle sponging and sucking

DIGESTION IN HUMANS
 The human digestive system contains alimentary canal and associated glands. We take in food
through mouth. From the mouth, it passes through a number of organs in the body. All these
organs together form a food canal called alimentary canal or digestive tract. Digestive system
of man consists of Mouth, Buccal Cavity, Oesophagus, Pharynx, Stomach, Small Intestine,
Large Intestine, Rectum and Anus. A few glands are associated with the alimentary canal like
Salivary glands, Liver and Pancreas.
 MOUTH:-

 Mouth and Buccal Cavity is bounded by upper lip and lower lip.
 Food is entered into the Buccal Cavity through mouth and is called Ingestion.
 The food is crushed and chewed in the Buccal Cavity with the help of the teeth and tongue.
 The teeth help in breaking bigger food particles into smaller pieces by the process of Chewing
or Mastication.
 The Tongue helps in mixing saliva with the food. Saliva is the watery substance secreted by the
three pairs of salivary glands. The juices present in the saliva help in chemical digestion of
starch into sugars.
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 Then the food enters into the Food Pipe or Oesophagus.
 There is presence of two sets of teeth in human beings:-
 Milk teeth ( 20 in number )
 Permanent teeth ( 32 in number )
 The different teeth present in the Buccal Cavity are incisors, canines, premolars and molars.

TYPES OF TEETH IN TEETH IN TOTAL FUNCTION

TEETH LOWER UPPER NUMBER
JAW JAW OF TEETH
incisors 4 4 8 cutting and biting
canines 2 2 4 piercing and tearing
premolars 4 4 8 chewing and
grinding
molars 6 6 12 crushing and
grinding

 If the teeth are not cleaned after eating, then many harmful bacteria present in the mouth start
acting on the sugars in the leftover food. Acids are also released by the bacteria. This acids
dissolves the minerals present in the teeth and thus damage the teeth. This damaged teeth is
called tooth decay which may form cavity in the teeth.
 Tongue helps in mixing the chewed food with saliva, swallowing, taste the food with the help
of taste buds.
 OESOPHAGUS:-

 The swallowed food passes from the mouth to the stomach through a passage or pipe called the
food pipe or oesophagus.
 The movement of food in the oesophagus is called peristalsis.
 STOMACH:-

 Stomach is u-shaped and it is the widest part of the alimentary canal present in the upper
abdomen.
 Food is digested inside the stomach with the help of gastric juice secreted by the gastric
glands present in the stomach.
 The inner lining of the stomach secretes mucus and hydrochloric acid where mucus protect the
inner lining of the stomach and the acid kills the bacteria which enters along with food and also
makes the medium acidic so that the digestive juices can act.
 The digestive juices help to break down the proteins into simpler substances.
 The partially digested food from the stomach goes into the small intestine

 SMALL INTESTINE:-

 The small intestine is the highly coiled structure about 7.5 metres long tube.
 Liver is the largest gland in our body. It produces bile juice into the small intestine. Bile
plays an important role in the digestion of fats.
 The Pancreas secretes the pancreatic juice into the small intestine that helps to digest
carbohydrates, proteins and fats.
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 The pancreatic juice converts carbohydrates into simple sugars and glucose, proteins into
amino acids, and the fats to fatty acids and glycerol
 The inner walls of the small intestine have millions of small finger like projections called the
Villi. Due to their presence, the surface area for digestion as well as absorption of digested food
increases by eight times.
 Energy needed for various activities is obtained from glucose.
 Digestion of all types of food is carried out and completed here.
 Absorption of digested food also takes place in the small intestine.
 The food substances are absorbed by the villi and then transported through the vessels
(capillaries) to different organs of the body.
 This process of utilisation of absorbed food, such as glucose, amino acids, fatty acids and
glycerol is called as Assimilation.
 LARGE INTESTINE:-
 The large intestine is shorter in length (about 1.5 metres) but wider than the small intestine.
 The undigested and unabsorbed food then enters the large intestine. The function of the large
intestine is to absorb the water and salts from the undigested food material. The undigested
semi solid waste that passes into the Rectum is called faeces
 It is then removed through the anus at intervals in a process called Egestion.
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DIGESTION IN RUMINANTS
 Grass-eating animals (herbivores) like cows, sheep, buffaloes, goats etc are called ruminants.
 Grass is rich in a specific complex carbohydrate called cellulose.
 It is present in the cell wall of plant cells. Humans cannot digest cellulose. The grass eating animals
have a unique method of digesting cellulose.
 Grass eating animals swallow the food without chewing and store it in the separate part of the
stomch called rumen.
 After feeding, they bring the food from the rumen back into the mouth and chew it leisurely. This
process is called rumination, and such animals are called ruminants.
 The bacteria present in the rumen helps in digestion of cellulose. The partially digested food in the
rumen is called cud.
 Partially chewed food is pushed down through the oesophagus into the rumen.
 The cud is brought back to the mouth to be chewed properly. The process of chewing cud is called
rumination. Rumination is also called second chewing.
 The stomach of a ruminant is divided into four chambers - the rumen, reticulum, omasum and
abomasums. Among these, the rumen is the largest.
 A large sac-like structure, called the caecum, lies between the oesophagus and small intestines.
 In the caecum, a kind of symbiotic bacteria helps digest cellulose.
 These symbiotic bacteria are not present in the human digestive system. That is why humans
cannot digest cellulose.

DIGESTION IN AMOEBA
 The term amoeba is derived from the Greek word amoibè, meaning change.
 Amoebae are found at the bottom of fresh water bodies like ponds and lakes, even in a gutter or
muddy water. Some of them are also found in damp soil and food.
 The amoeba is a single-celled animal.
 The amoeba has a jelly-like substance, called the cytoplasm, inside a flexible boundary called the
cell membrane. Floating in the cytoplasm are various structures like the nucleus, food vacuoles
and contractile vacuoles.
 It constantly changes its shape and position.
 An amoeba takes in dissolved oxygen from the surrounding water, and gives off carbon dioxide
into the water through the cell membrane.
 An amoeba can move in all directions using temporary feet-like structures, called pseudopodia.
An amoeba, with the help of pseudopodia, captures and engulfs its prey along with a droplet of
water.
 In an amoeba, digestive juices convert food particles into simpler substances inside the food
vacuole.
 The cytoplasm absorbs digested food directly, and uses it for growth, maintenance and
multiplication.
 In the amoeba, undigested remains of food are thrown out of the body.