Jovaro wrote:In fact it would be very difficult if not impossible for carnivores to eat vegetables and stuff.
As you might know there are three groups: herbivores (planteaters), carnivores (meateaters) and omnivores (both plant and meat eaters)
A great example of a herbivore is the elephant. Plants and leaves must be chewed thoroughly to be digested. Elephants have many teeth for chewing, they even change their teeth for chewing, because the chewing weares the teeth down.
I think the elephant has 6 sets of those teeth, so it can change teeth 6 times. When all the sets are used, the elephant dies.
An elephant can't eat meat because it lacks the proper teeth.
See here something on the carnivores teeth:
[url:19t3njev]http://www.saburchill.com/chapters/chap0014.html[/url] wrote:The teeth of these carnivores are adapted to eat they flesh of their prey. At the front of the mouth the teeth are sharp and pointed. There are four which are longer than the others. These are called the canine teeth. These are the teeth that the big cat uses to hold on to the throat of its prey to kill it.
The teeth at the back of the mouth are also sharp and pointed but larger than those at the front. When the mouth is closed these back teeth come together like the blades of a pair of scissors. These teeth are used to cut into the flesh of the prey and sheer off pieces of meat. These carnivores have powerful muscles which can open and close the mouth. Carnivores are not able to move their jaws from side to side very easily.
If you chew you move your jaws to "grind" the food. Carnivores can hardly do this, let alone that they don't have the flat teeth to chew with.
Omnivores have a mix of both kinds of teeth and can eat both meat and plants, regardless of what they choose to eat like the panda...