Portfolio > The Quest for Food: Excerpts
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Primate
Diets All illustrations by the author Ivan Crowe |
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Primate Diets
Chimpanzees are known to modify natural objects in order to use them as tools to obtain food. Here they are using stripped grass stems to fish for termites. The insects eaten by chimpanzees provide a source of vitamin B and probably also compensate to some extent for the deficiency of specific amino acids and lipids available in an otherwise largely vegetarian diet. The flesh of animals, which they occasionally kill and eat, also represents an important nutritional supplement in their dietary regime. |