Cannibal Bambi: The Rest of the Story

Born to Kill! Copyright 2011 by Helenah Swedberg

My new piece in Slate today is about herbivores being caught eating meat. For the sake of brevity, I stuck to a discussion focused on deer and hippos eating meat in the wild. But there are plenty of examples involving other species.

Most of us have probably seen the video of a cow gulping down a live baby chick. There are quite a lot of accounts of this behavior among cattle, but I didn't include it in my Slate piece because captive animals don't quite count. Their behavior and diet are strongly influenced by humans and don't make for good lessons on evolution or animal behavior. I have a sunfish in my home aquarium that eats little shreds of venison and mutton but this doesn't allow me to claim that sunfish prey on mammals.

There have been a very few confirmed cases of both Indian and African elephants killing and eating human beings. All have involved elephants placed into unusual situations by humans and probably don't signify much more than the need to leave elephants the hell alone.

Squirrels are one of the more surprising critters known to regularly kill and eat meat. There is a reason why birds are so often seen driving squirrels away from their nests in the spring. Squirrels will eat eggs and and baby birds. I have personally observed eastern grey squirrels feeding on scavenged meat. Anyone who has spent a lot of time in an urban public park has probably witnessed squirrels grabbing left-over sandwich meat and making a run for it. They aren't very picky.

Rabbits are known to sometimes eat their young shortly after birth. This has been described as a response to certain types of malnutrition or stress resulting from nearby predators. It also likely happens when babies are still-born. This isn't the same thing as being willing to scavenge or kill other types of meat in the wild, but it indicates that there is at least a physical capacity for rabbits to chew and successfully digest flesh.

I've often wondered why so many organic chicken meat is marketed as being '100% vegetarian fed,' when chickens are naturally omnivores. I have seen many a grasshopper and beetle meet its end by a chicken's beak. In the Florida Keys I watched a wild Dixie chicken swallow a little brown lizard. Small reptiles make up a normal part of the diets of wild chickens in hot climates. 

Finally, the black spiny-tailed iguana is known for being almost 100% vegetarian in its native habitat in Central America. But the invasive population on the Gulf Coast of Florida is at least as much of a predator as it is an herbivore. I've personally watched Floridian spiny-tails lunging at prey, I have identified numerous insect parts in their scat, and I have found what appeared to be partially digested Cuban anoles among their stomach contents.

Judging by the broad range of species that indulge in occasional meat-eating, I think that it doesn't take much of an investment for animals to retain some small ability to eat and digest meat. So long as they maintain an option on this behavior they probably have the capability to evolve into more specialized carnivores if the need arises. In the long run, eating a bit of meat is probably an evolutionary advantage.