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Cake day: January 11th, 2024

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  • My point is that they’re entirely forward facing. Calling it a mammal rule isn’t really accurate. It’s about whether or not the animal needs to judge distance to attack. Sharks use their vision to scan for prey above and below them, but they use their other sense to attack. Hawks and cats have a significantly different sense of vision, but both need to be able to accurately judge distance with their eyes when attacking.


  • That article says exactly what I said about Panda’s:

    Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivoran, the giant panda’s diet is primarily herbivorous, with approximately 99% of its diet consisting of bamboo. However, the giant panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore, as well as carnivore-specific genes, and thus derives little energy and little protein from the consumption of bamboo. The ability to break down cellulose and lignin is very weak, and their main source of nutrients comes from starch and hemicelluloses.

    While primarily herbivorous, the giant panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the giant panda’s bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements.

    They have developed some minor digestive traits that help them process bamboo, but they don’t have the four chambered stomach of a cow or the extra-long hindgut of a gorilla to thoroughly digest plant matter. They have to seasonal migrate to get the amount of nutrients they need from young bamboo shoots and mature bamboo leaves. Their bodies could easily process a carnivorous diet, but their metabolism has become too slow for then to manage to hunt almost anything besides plants.


  • I don’t think there’s a hard rule you can put on it. Sharks are ambush predators, but they need a wide field of vision to scan above and below for prey. Monkeys are mostly herbivores or opportunistic omnivores, but they have forward facing eyes to jump through trees. It’s just about what they animal needs their eyes to do, and forward facing eyes are mostly used for trying to grab another animal.


  • Pandas aren’t true herbivores, they’re more like vegetarians. Their teeth, digestive tracks, and eyes are all better adapted to eat meat, but they’re too dumb and clumsy to catch any, so they’ve settled on bamboo. If a smaller, dumber, clumsier animal moved into their ecosystem, they would start eating it immediately.