Traits:Feeding

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Feeding

Feeding: Traits related to how an organism feeds, the food type and feeding method exhibited by a species

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Has Values:

• Feeding
  • Feeding apparatus
    • Aristotle's lantern
    • Arms or appendages
      • Grasping claws
      • Grasping paws, hands, feet
        • Clawed
        • Talons
      • Papillae or tube feet
      • Setose (Hairy)
      • Suctorial (sucker bearing)
    • Captacula
    • Cephalic spines
    • Choanocytes
    • Eversible pharynx
      • Buccal organ absent or occluded
      • Muscular axial proboscis
      • Simple axial proboscis
      • Ventral buccal organ
      • Ventral muscular proboscis
    • Gills
      • Ctenidia
      • Filter basket
      • Gill rakers
    • Inhalent siphon
    • Introvert
    • Lophophore
    • Mouth parts
      • Beak
      • Biting or macerating
      • Piercing or suctorial
    • Mucus mesh or net
    • Phagocytosis
    • Radulae
      • Piercing
      • Rasping
    • Tentacles
      • Accessory feeding structures
      • Grasping
      • Oral podia
      • Palps
      • Pinnate or branching
      • Sticky or mucus covered
      • Stinging
  • Feeding Method/Behaviour
    • Deposit Feeder
      • Sub-surface deposit feeder
      • Surface deposit feeder
    • Grazer/Browser
      • Browser
      • Grazer
        • Grazer (fronds/blades)
        • Grazer (grains / particles)
        • Grazer (surface/substratum)
    • Kleptoparasitism
    • Non-Feeding
    • Parasitic
    • Parasitoid
    • Predator (Hunter)
      • Ambusher
        • Pouncing
          • Lures
        • Snatching
        • Stun attack
        • Traps
      • Pursuit hunter (co-operative)
        • Dipping
          • Aerial dipping
          • Contact dipping
          • Dipping to surface
          • Hover dipping
          • Surface dipping
        • Diving
          • Pursuit Diving
          • Surface Diving
        • Driving Fish Forward
        • Food Piracy
        • Hawking
          • Aerial hawking
        • Hovering
        • Plunging
          • Plunge Diving
          • Pursuit Plunging
          • Shallow plunging
          • Surface plunging
        • Seizing
          • Subsurface seizing
          • Surface seizing
          • Underwater seizing
      • Pursuit Hunter (individual)
      • Searcher/Forager
        • Cruising
        • Dabbling
        • Floating
        • Following Fishing Boats
        • Foot Paddling
        • Foot Stirring
        • Ground Foraging
        • Pattering
        • Picking from the water surface
        • Probing
        • Skimming
        • Swimming
          • Underwater swimming
        • Wading in shallow water
    • Scavenger
    • Suspension feeder
      • Passive
  • Food Type/Diet
    • Autotroph
      • Chemoautotroph
      • Photoautotroph
    • Heterotroph
      • Carnivore
      • Detritivore
      • Herbivore
      • Omnivore
      • Saprophage
      • Symbiont contribution
    • Mixotroph

These trait categories try to distinguish between what an organism consumes or feeds on from the mechanism by which it feeds. For example a herbivore feeds on plant material. If it feeds on grass or plant turfs then it is a grazer, or on the leaves of shrubs then a browser. However, a sea urchin is a grazer feeding on encrusting or turf forming flora or fauna, and probably an omnivore. The apparatus used to undertake feeding is separated into another trait category.