A gummivore is an

omnivorous An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nut ...

animal whose diet consists primarily of the gums and saps of

trees In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are u ...

(about 90%) and bugs for protein. Notable gummivores include

arboreal Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally, but others are exclusively arboreal. The habitats pose nu ...

, terrestrial

primates Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians ( monkeys and apes, the latter including ...

like certain

marmoset The marmosets (), also known as zaris or sagoin, are 22 New World monkey species of the genera ''Callithrix'', ''Cebuella'', ''Callibella'', and ''Mico''. All four genera are part of the biological family Callitrichidae. The term "marmoset" is ...

s and

lemur Lemurs ( ) (from Latin ''lemures'' – ghosts or spirits) are wet-nosed primates of the superfamily Lemuroidea (), divided into 8 families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are endemic to the island of Madagas ...

s. These animals that live off of the injuries of trees live from about 8m off of the ground up to the canopies. The feeding habit of gummivores is gummivory.Plavcan, J. M., & Kay, R. (1962). Reconstructing behavior in the primate fossil record. (pp. 165–170). New York, NY: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers. Retrieved fro
Google Books.
/ref>

Specific traits

An Old World example of a gummivore is

fork-marked lemur Fork-marked lemurs or fork-crowned lemurs are Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhine primates; the four species comprise the genus ''Phaner''. Like all lemurs, they are native to Madagascar, where they are found only in the west, north, and east sides of t ...

s, whose diet is about 90% gum

exudates An exudate is a fluid emitted by an organism through pores or a wound, a process known as exuding or exudation. ''Exudate'' is derived from ''exude'' 'to ooze' from Latin ''exsūdāre'' 'to (ooze out) sweat' (''ex-'' 'out' and ''sūdāre'' 'to ...

from a tree's branches or trunk.Merrit, J. (2010). The biology of small mammals. (pp. 89–93). Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved fro
Google Books.
/ref> Lemurs have a “ tooth comb”, made up of the lower

incisors Incisors (from Latin ''incidere'', "to cut") are the front teeth present in most mammals. They are located in the premaxilla above and on the mandible below. Humans have a total of eight (two on each side, top and bottom). Opossums have 18, wher ...

and canines. Fork-marked lemurs have more robust toothcombs than most other lemurs and use these specialized teeth to gouge the bark from the surface of a tree. Fork-marked lemurs also consume the gum seeping from beneath the bark of trees, via spaces created by beetles. Their long, slim tongue enables them to access these openings in the bark. They also possess a symbiotic bacterium that assists in the digestion of the gum, starting the process in the mouth. The

black-tufted marmoset The black-tufted marmoset (''Callithrix penicillata''), also known as Mico-estrela in Portuguese, is a species of New World monkey that lives primarily in the Neo-tropical gallery forests of the Brazilian Central Plateau. It ranges from Bahia ...

(''Callithrix penicillata'') is a New World example that mostly lives off of the sap from trees. To do this, the monkey uses their lengthened lower incisors to chew through the bark of a tree and obtain the sap; this classifies it as a gummivore. The incisors are extremely specialized, since they are the marmosets’ “tool” to acquire food. The teeth have a thickened enamel on the exterior, but lack the enamel on the inside creating a tough, chiseling tool. Both the lemurs and marmosets have a

gecko Geckos are small, mostly carnivorous lizards that have a wide distribution, found on every continent except Antarctica. Belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, geckos are found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from . Geckos a ...

-like hand and catlike claws, which are extremely useful in clinging on to trees for extended amounts of time.

Feeding strategies

Before feeding time comes around, the marmosets must prepare their food by chiseling multiple small holes into the

bark Bark may refer to: * Bark (botany), an outer layer of a woody plant such as a tree or stick * Bark (sound), a vocalization of some animals (which is commonly the dog) Places * Bark, Germany * Bark, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland Arts, e ...

s of trees. The actual bite left behind is about 2–3 cm across and just deep enough to retrieve sap. After about a day passes, the primates will return to their bite marks and consume the leaking sap. In order to consume gums and other indirect sources of nutrients, these animals must have a digestive system to compensate. Gums of trees are beta-linked

polysaccharides Polysaccharides (), or polycarbohydrates, are the most abundant carbohydrates found in food. They are long chain polymeric carbohydrates composed of monosaccharide units bound together by glycosidic linkages. This carbohydrate can react with w ...

that are not easily digested. These require a form of microbial

fermentation Fermentation is a metabolic process that produces chemical changes in organic substrates through the action of enzymes. In biochemistry, it is narrowly defined as the extraction of energy from carbohydrates in the absence of oxygen. In food p ...

to acquire the essential nutrients. This process takes the marmoset roughly 17.5 hours (± 1.6 hours) to completely digest, while

carnivores A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other so ...

take a mere 3–4 hours to digest proteins from meat. Though the digestive process takes some time, the gummivorous mammals have relatively low daily caloric needs, as they do not expend as much energy to acquire their food. Gums contain

galactose Galactose (, '' galacto-'' + ''-ose'', "milk sugar"), sometimes abbreviated Gal, is a monosaccharide sugar that is about as sweet as glucose, and about 65% as sweet as sucrose. It is an aldohexose and a C-4 epimer of glucose. A galactose molecu ...

in form of galacturonic acid. This sugar is part of lactose, which is milk sugar, so consumption of gums in early mammals or their precursors might be a cause for development of mammary glands in mammals along with maternal instincts to feed their offspring and increased body lipids in females of early mammals.

Shelter effects

Captivity in animals drives them away from their natural instincts and behaviors. Some gummivores are commonly held captive and even as household pets. A gummivore like the marmoset has the digestive system and oral tools required for feasting on saps of trees, but when fed more nutrient filled foods, there will be a severe change in the plasticity of the mammal. For example, if a marmoset's diet is changed, over the next few generations of that animal, it will adapt to those foods, rendering their natural adaptations useless such as the chiseling teeth and the bacterial fermentation.

Notes

References

{{Reflist Wildlife Primate behavior Ethology Animals by eating behaviors