And how do the crocs know which fruit to eat?
Instinct i guess? The digestive tract is a chem lab that analyzes the nutrient content, among others. You’ve eaten it once, you get a craving once you require something of it.
Comment on Wonder what their cousins liked to snack on...
bryophile@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Interesting! But how do we know the crocs eat the fruit specifically as mineral or fibre supplement and not just for sustenance or for the fun of death rolling a pumpkin?
And how do the crocs know which fruit to eat? I guess for them to eat anything with the intention of being provided with minerals or fibre they need to know their fruits? And how do the scientists know about this?
I have so many questions.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
bryophile@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
So they go around eating plants they don’t know to see if they like them and get a craving for them later? Doesn’t seem very crocodile-like
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Well, at least human children do that.
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
With humans it’s the same (cravings), you need potassium & maybe crave a banana milkshake. If you explore your craving further, eg ask yourself if you would like to drink milk or eat a banana, it might get more clear what you need (it also helps exclude carbs bcs usually we don’t need them, but the self-preservation & long winters of the past usually means most humans don’t have much limit on carbs, bcs why not more of them, just to be safer). It’s a trained skill to some extent, especially in the modern era.
We associate nutrients with food tastes we get from our meals (which are usually a mixture of things & might even be wrong/false with ultra-processed foods).
I have no idea how this works in ancient crocks. Is it a learned (try all the foods when growing up?), observed (yo, why Silly Goose the neighbouring crock eating a jack-o’-lantern), or “instinct” (ie only crocks that ate pumpkins survived)?
… especially given that even the current “true crocodiles” predate squash/pumpkins by 40+ million years :D.bryophile@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Yes I guess these cravings are part of the “reptilian brain” in humans as well.
Hathaway@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
There is no “reptile” brain. This is 1960s bad science.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Just ask them
NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
There was a human study in the 1920s by Clara Davis where they followed a group of children in self led eating habits. They offered a range of healthy foods each day and let the kids choose what they ate - generally kids fed themselves a healthy diet with appropriate portions as long as the food offered was healthy. They would even eat fish oil voluntarily and maintained good vitamin D and omega 3 levels.
Now the author never had the opportunity to try it with processed foods or junk foods, so this may not hold true when items specifically formulated to keep you eating come into play. However, it’s entirely possible that the crocodile in the image has some instinct that drives it to eat a healthy diet. Or you’re correct, maybe it is playing and using the pumpkin as a toy, but it is unusual that it would consume it then