Talk:List of herbivorous animals

start

I've started this page in spite of it having been deleted before, not because I am especially interested in herbivores, but because I think it should be possible to extract such informations from Wikipedia (like: which animals are herbivores? Is a horse herbivorous? etc.). Even better would be if this kind of information would be included in taxoboxes of the subjects pages so that even more complex queries become possible (like: which animals are mammals and herbivores (and (not) threatend by extinction and ...)?) Now, I don't know much about the internals and the roadmap of Wikipedia, but it seems that generally more emphasis should be put on making information machine-readable in order to allow extraction for "semantic web" application. Besides, we don't know what the future holds and one day we might like to feed a complex AI with wiki knowledge and right know, most of the content is not in a state to be used for such enterprises. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.226.14.148 (talk • contribs)

It's fine to have such a list, but many of the entries were plain wrong. Take care in populating this list. A sub-division might be to split into those species that are wholly herbivorous and those species that are mostly herbivorous, and to split into types of herbivory. There's now a category for this too. Fences&Windows 14:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Intent to reorganize list

I intend to eventually reorganize this list so that entries are at the Order level at a minimum, possible Family level for Mammals. Also I intend to limit the number of specific species listed, except by example. There are simple too many species to list all at the species level.--Mike Cline (talk) 16:48, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe that was the point made at AfD. However, this list should only contain properly sourced material. I deleted a very poorly sourced section on insects: many insects are carnivorous. Equally, some kangaroos (now extinct) were carnivorous. -- Radagast3 (talk) 21:13, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Human?

Humans are omnivores, not herbivores. Some humans may choose a herbivorous diet but it is not a trait of the species. They are omnivores, as are gorillas. I'm going to remove them.210.185.5.217 (talk) 07:41, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Vegan propaganda?

This list seems to have been written by a sectarian vegan guru... 90% of the vertebrates listed there eat meat when they have the opportunity to do so: moose eating squirrels or on dead carcasses, caribou eating eggs and babies in bird's nests, deer eating birds, squirrels and even rabbits, horses killing and eating birds, male and female rabbits killing and eating their young, goats eating carcasses on the roadsides and the same can be said for most others, zebras, bison, elk, mountain goat, hippos, hares, mices and so on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.144.112.131 (talk) 23:21, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

• Hmm that guru...we'll slaughter and eat them at the next Wikimania. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 23:23, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Major Article Overhaul

When I first saw this article in February, I was kind of surprised by the state of it! One would think such a fundamental and "list-able" topic would have an extensively developed WP article dedicated to it, and it has been around for a while, since 2005. Yet I was able to think of dozens of taxa off of the top of my head that were missing, and that is without any especial research (during which I discovered probably hundreds, if not thousands, of herbivorous species I hadn't known about). Go and look at the condition this article was in in January; it was scant, barely had a single source, had a number of incorrect entries, and was missing scores of famous and important herbivorous taxa.

I started editing semi-randomly; I reformatted a tiny bit and added some taxa here and there. Then I really got to work on three sections: I added most of what I think are the herbivorous or semi-herbivorous Amphibians, a fairly short order considering how few species qualify, even for semi-herbivory (more on this later). For the Squamates, essentially the Lizards, I had to do some more in-depth research, though I still wasn't in the habit of adding extensive sources for this article (will have to go back and do for several other entries too). I probably did miss some taxa here, but I got the majority of the major ones. I didn't organize it as "phylogenetically" as Mammals, for instance, with all entries being at the same level; this could be changed. And finally, I added quite a few Insects, though sources are sporadic.

I returned to this article more recently and entirely revamped the whole Mammals section; currently, everything in that section was written by me, including a plethora of sources. There are a list of tasks still to be achieved here, which I am keeping somewhat haphazard track of, but it is quite satisfying in its completeness, and in far better state than it was before. I plan to extend this treatment to Birds next, which is in an even more pitiable state at the moment than Mammals was.

There are a lot of little things as I go through that I think about, as regard decisions about how the article is formatted. I don't write these all down as they come up, but they range from keeping the tone and structure of sentences consistent, making or not making sublists listing taxa within a taxon for various cases, capitalization, use of plurals and "the", which and how many example species to cite, vs citing genera, etc. I'll gladly go along with any reasonable decisions made on these, but be warned it will be laborious to go through the article for consistency, at least manually. I did try to make it as consistent as possible and mostly stick to older conventions for the article, but I did have to make some calls. Also making the citations consistent, if that's necessary, seems difficult manually.

Another issue is the amount and content of text that is included. Where possible I have listed taxa as simply as possible, but often there are important notes to be made about the preponderance (e.g., "Most of the Blablaidae are herbivorous...") or degree (e.g., "The Blabla blabus is almost exclusively herbivorous, but does include some insects in its diet.") of herbivory. I am unsure about decisions to be made here, but certainly text can be streamlined in places by making sublists or cutting out excess. I do feel, however, that additional text is absolutely needed to convey vital context in at least some places, since the question of what is a herbivore is very often not straightforward.

That brings us to the last issue for now, which is criteria for inclusion of a taxon. In general, almost every single entrant I included was either virtually exclusively herbivorous (arbitrarily close to 100%) or close enough to it, typically well over 95%, where such quantitative data are available. I think a good minimum, albeit arbitrary, for considering an animal herbivorous is around 90%. However, I have left one mention and added possibly a few myself of animals which are not typically this herbivorous, but are nonetheless noteworthy, typically for being unusually herbivorous for their taxon. The sirens were already here, and I added, for instance, the maned wolf; both are atypically herbivorous for their parent taxa (Caudata and Canidae respectively), but generally omnivorous, although maned wolves can be majority herbivorous by a good amount in some cases.

I also mention four species of bear which are also best regarded as omnivores, but can be very herbivorous in certain, fairly common conditions. There are many animals like this, "flexible" omnivores who lean herbivorous, and I mostly did not include them, but I felt these bears were an important inclusion because it seems many of their populations are significantly herbivorous, possibly even meeting the 90% threshold in cases (to be clear, these four bears don't include panda and spectacled, which are less controversially herbivores). Other cases of possibly "controversial" additions include baboons, chimpanzees, chipmunks, squirrels, and Suina (pigs and peccaries). Unlike the bears, however, all these animals are typically not very omnivorous at all. I have caveats written for each and extensive citations demonstrating the extent of herbivory; I can always add more where we feel this is needed, but these should be definitive list items, since their typical, wild diets are all ~90% or more, on average. Chipmunks are by far the most arguable of those entries. KettleMettle (talk) 03:20, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I forgot to mention some important things:

PHOTOS!!!! This article is incomplete without them. There are so many beautiful and diverse and little-known herbivorous animals to show off; so many, in fact, that it's difficult to know how best to do that. I am pretty new to this level of Wiki editing; I am playing around with possible galleries for now, and have tried just putting them down the side, but they end up going down past the citations and it looks very ugly, unless I include so few that I can't do them justice. Would greatly appreciate ideas on how best to display some herbivorous animals. I want at least, for mammals, for instance, a few marsupials, sloths, elephants, a few/several primates, several rodents, a few bats, a few Carnivorans, several ungulates... maybe this is overly ambitious, but having seen some of the diversity of herbivorous animals, it would feel like a real shame to have to be very selective.

Additional controversial taxa: A few I forgot to mention. I suppose many primates in general, but especially apes, such as orangutans and gibbons. Hippos. Though neither should be controversial; I mention their deviations from herbivory, and they are all overwhelmingly predominantly herbivorous. The African palm civet is about 80% herbivorous, so not quite 90%, but is worth mention as the sole member of its entire family, a taxonomically and evolutionarily unique animal that happens to be predominantly herbivorous, which is rare for Carnivorans to begin with. I think that merits mention. And, finally, humans. A bit of an outlier, but since a significant number of humans are herbivorous or close to it, and treating humans as merely another species of animal, I think this qualifies for some mention on the list. It also has a rich historical, cultural, religious, and intellectual tradition associated with it. This is not to say that humans in general, by whatever definition, should be classified as herbivores; only that some humans practice more or less herbivorous feeding habits. KettleMettle (talk) 06:25, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

@KettleMettle: You are doing good work and you are thinking about your work as you do it. Hurray! The list was a mess and I'm glad you've taken it up.

You are right that precise criteria for inclusion is a challenge. It looks to me like you are making reasonable decisions. I'd suggest including the decisions and the basis for them in the text. Inevitably someone will disagree at some point or ask why you are not including something they think is important. At that point being able to quote the text which explains the criteria helps. It's also reasonable to discuss changing the criteria, but having something in place will make a good starting place. Keep up the good work. SchreiberBike | ⌨  20:09, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind words and encouragement! You are terrific! KettleMettle (talk) 13:19, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

This is not a list

I tried to use this page on cheating in online quiz that asked herbivorous animals. Did I got any help? No. This is not a list. A list has animals with their common names, nothing else. In 30 seconds time you can't find anything here. --37.33.217.47 (talk) 12:16, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

types of herbivores in Illinois

. 2601:240:8300:4C40:9D48:87F:1882:FFA (talk) 00:58, 24 April 2024 (UTC)