AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Monogastric digestive systems begin with the in-gestion of food into their mouth. The tongue and the teeth gather feed and break it down into smaller piec-es in order to make it easier for the animal to digest. Food travels down the esophagus, which is a long tube that carries the feed from the mouth to the stomach.

Detailed explanation-2: -Ruminant animals are characterized by their method of digesting food in two phases. Like all animals, they start their digestion after eating food. However, before the digestive process is complete ruminant animals regurgitate their food to chew it again and add saliva.

Detailed explanation-3: -This is true, but cows are able to voluntarily “un-swallow” their food. This process of swallowing, “un-swallowing”, re-chewing, and re-swallowing is called “rumination, ” or more commonly, “chewing the cud.” Rumination enables cows to chew grass more completely, which improves digestion.

Detailed explanation-4: -On high-forage diets ruminants often ruminate or regurgitate ingested forage. This allows them to “chew their cud” to reduce particle size and improve digestibility.