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tors like season, age, reproductive state, health, hunger, environment. The greatest number of mammals, including most primates, are herbivorous.
The balance maintained by nature in the animal world becomes evident when we see the energy cycle inherent in the food chain. Sunlight pours upon the forests, algae in the pond, plankton, etc., giving its energy, which is converted into green growth by photosynthesis. The energy retained in the structure of plants becomes a reservoir upon which the entire community depends. Thus the plants are termed producers.
The plant eaters, ranging from animal plankton to elephant, become the primary consumers. They eat plants, use some energy for their daily chores of life, and store the rest of it in the form of flesh and blood. The carnivores, ranging from the smallest fish, animals and birds to big cats and whales, kill these herbivores and consume their flesh and blood. They are the secondary consumers. When the carnivores die, part of their stored energy is consumed by carrion eaters like vultures and part is decomposed by bacteria and fungi to become simple soil nutrients. This form of energy again passes to the plants, completing the cycle of energy transfer.
There are infinite varieties of living organisms, pulsating with life activities or lying dormant, performing their specialized functions all along this energy cycle or the food chain. The exact type of food consumed depends on the adaptation of the anatomy of the particular species. This, in turn, is dependent on the ecology of the habitat.
The simplest example of adaptation of animal anatomy can be observed by studying the denture of different species
AHIMSA: THE SCIENCE OF PEACE 71
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