EXCEPTIONAL APPETITES

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5016, 20 August 1926, Page 1

EXCEPTIONAL APPETITES

INSECT AND ANIMAL GLUTTONS.

SOME INTERESTING COMPARISONS

Although ths whale and the; elephant .are giants in stature, they do not begin to compare, with much smaller creatures in regard td appetites.. Who ever heard <cW an elephant eating five times its weight in foodstuff every day 1 But that is, exactly? the amount of foliage which a potato beetle devours. You wouldn’t board a horse very long that! ate a ton of hay every day, would you ? Yet, if a horse ate as much as a caterpillar in proportion to its size, that i & the amount of hay it woud consume. Of all insects, though, the grasshopper is the king of gluttons. It consumes in a day 'from ten to twelve times its weight in vegetation. Among mammals the wolverene is is classed as a hearty eater. One of these animals has. been known to consume 15 pounds of meat in a single day. In fact, so veracious is, he; that it is popularly called the glutton. The mole is a regular slave to its appetite a,nd is 'constanty at work digging in the earth in search olf food. So ravenous is it that it is capable ofi sustaining a fas.t of over a few hours. A mole in captivity is recorded as having devoured ,500 earth worms within the space of nine hours. You would never imagine, the leech as being a, member of the glutton family. Nevertheless, a leech, iV left undisturbed, will imbibe, so large a quantity of blood at one. meal that it will need no mone flood-for a year, being able to digest, by very slow degrees, the enormous,’meat which it has taken. The tiger is also a glutton for blood, and it is a matter of record that a single tiger has killed as many ,as ten cattle in a day, sucking the blood from all and leaving the flesh untouched.

The eland would be a grand addition to our group of domesticated animals, but all attempts, at domestication have failed owing to its, ravenous appetite. The hippopotamus is possessed of a stomach which is capable of containing from five to six bushels. o£l nutriment, so it is not surprising to know that old "hippo” is constantly on the job keeping his stomach filled. The Brazilian agouti is one of the most voracious of animals, and causes great loss to the, planters. It is. fond of potatoes and yams, ahd a single agouti, the size of a rabbit, ha.s been known to devour sixty pounds of potatoes in two days.

Of sea animals the starfish is, the real glutton. One of these creature,s will devour on an average 50 oysters, or 'clams every 24 hours. When it finds an article of diet too large to be taken into its, mouth it turns its stomach wrong side out and wraps it around the, article to be eaten, and after digestion withdraws the stomach again.

The grampus, another glutton of the sea, is a very wolf in its, constant hunger. Its swallow is sot great that it can easily take a porpoise or a Seal entire, and has been known to swallow several, in succession.