Florivore
Animal that mostly eats flowers
In zoology, a florivore (not to be confused with a folivore) is an animal that primarily eats products of flowers. Florivores are types of herbivores (often referred to as floral herbivores), yet within the feeding behavior of florivory, there is a range of other more specific feeding behaviors, including, but not limited to:
- Granivory: the consumption of grain and seeds
- Nectarivory: the consumption of flower nectar
- Palynivory: the consumption of flower pollen
- Frugivory: the consumption of fruit
01Diet
A florivore's diet consists of bulky foodstuffs, including the items mentioned above, yet also bark, roots, and similar items. Many florivores are also omnivores, meaning that their diets can also be supplemented by various small insects, for instance.
02Examples
The majority of birds in the Psittacine family are florivores, which includes most parrots, parakeets, macaws, and cockatoos. Other notable florivores are hummingbirds, sparrows, and toucans. The crab-eating macaque acts as an invasive florivore in Mauritius, where it forages voraciously on flowers of native plants, including the endangered, endemic Roussea simplex.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Florivore”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Parrot.jpg by Contributor50, CC BY-SA 4.0
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