Episode 197 – Durophagy (Eating Hard Stuff)

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Lots of animals are specially adapted for eating tough foods: seeds, shells, bones, etc. This episode, we explore the many approaches to Duropagy.

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Firm Foods

Durophagous animals consume particularly tough foods; this can include hard-shelled prey, seeds and nuts, or bone. Durophagy is very common, and many animals eat tough foods on occasion. For example, plenty of herbivores will gnaw on bones to obtain additional minerals and nutrients, and lots of carnivores will crunch into bones from time to time.

On the other hand, many animals have particular adaptations for dealing with a diet of tough foods. Durophagous species often have powerful jaws and rounded or flattened teeth for crushing hard materials, as seen in hyenas and many fish, and many marine snails use their tongue-like radula as a drill to penetrate the hard shells of bivalves. And there are many more varied strategies: some sea stars use their arms to pry open clams and mussels; otters famously use rocks to smash open shelled prey; mantis shrimp literally punch their hard-shelled food; many birds drop shells or bones from the air to crack them on the ground; and some snail-eating snakes use their jaws like a saw to slice off the hard parts of their prey.

Durophagy is an important concept in paleontology since adaptations for this feeding style are often easy to spot in fossils. Many ancient species features rounded crushing teeth or powerfully-built skulls and jaws for crunching hard food. Evidence for durophagy can also come from traces on prey, such as drill holes on fossil mollusks, or traces in coprolites, such as bone fragments in the fossil poop of borophagine dogs and tyrannosaurs.

Durophagous adaptations have evolved many times in nearly all major groups of life. These adaptations are often responsible for major ecological shifts, including the rise of herbivory in early land ecosystems and the changing composition of the oceans during the Mesozoic Marine Revolution.

Learn more

VIDEOS
Sea Otter Using a Rock to Open Clams
Wild African vulture birds scavage bones of dead animals

Durophagy was in full swing half a billion years ago
What Fossilized Scat Shows About T. rex Bite

Skull Shape Evolution in Durophagous Carnivorans (technical, open access)
Bone Digestion and Intestinal Morphology of the Bearded Vulture (technical, open access)
Durophagy in Sharks: Feeding Mechanics of the Hammerhead Sphyrna tiburo (technical, open access)
Mandibular sawing in a snail-eating snake (technical, open access)

The Biomechanics Behind Extreme Osteophagy in Tyrannosaurus rex (technical, open access)
Tyrannosaurid-like osteophagy by a Triassic archosaur (technical, open access)
Biomechanical analyses of Cambrian euarthropod limbs reveal their effectiveness in mastication and durophagy (technical, open access)

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If you enjoyed this topic and want more like it, check out these related episodes:

• Episode 88 – Evolution of Teeth
• Episode 134 – Sanguivores (Blood-Eaters)
• Episode 173 – Herbivores (Plant-Eaters)
• Episode 174 – The Mesozoic Marine Revolution

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