kamari3 asked:
I found your blog through that post explaining how horses are built good for running but not for tanking. My apologies if i missed you already answering this.
are there any other animal builds that you find interesting? like, "this animal has X quality and it is good for doing Y, but it causes Z problem that it never got a firmware update for and that's bonkers" or "this animal has X quality which might have been helpful at one point but now just causes Y problem (bonus if its something you make good money treating; bonus again if its really really annoying)"
(i like those kinda fun facts.)
vet-and-wild here.
Not sure if this totally answers your question, but rabbits. They have this incredible GI tract that allows them to efficiently utilize plant matter and extract as many nutrients as possible. They even consume their own feces (cecotrophs) to extract even more nutrients. Really their teeth are part of this too. They have teeth that grow continuously so they can be worn down by the high fiber roughage that they consume. Their entire GI tract is an incredible evolutionary feat and it is so incredibly complex…but it is also the thing that often ends up killing them. If a rabbit stops eating, it’s an emergency situation. And anything can make them stop eating; Stress, pain, illness, dietary issues, dental disease, etc. The number one exotic animal emergency is GI stasis (Guinea pigs and chinchillas can experience this too, rabbits are just a bit more commonly kept as pets still). I’ve probably treated more GI stasis buns than any other emergency since I graduated. I guess that’s the price to pay for such specialized anatomy.
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