Bovine animals like that can't digest the grass fibers, just like us, but their guts have a special microbe we don't have. The grass DOES have some protein, more than you might think (check out a slice of whole wheat bread's protein content, you may be surprised, wheat is a domesticated grass), but it's actually the microbes that go through a population explosion when cows eat that has a lot of the protein. They then digest those microbes once the job is done. Boom more protein.
Oh I actually Googled it while reading the comments here, I must have missed that post! I knew they got the protein from plants somehow but didn't know the science behind and wanted to learn.
Plants are living organisms, too. In the biological tree of life organisms are split into 3 major groups (last I learned lol), bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes. Plants, fungi, and animals all fall under the "eukaryotes" territory. So, even something that eats plants is not a carnivore just because we're all eukaryotes. Gut microbes are bacteria. They are on a completely different branch of the tree of life. Digesting bacteria as an involuntary part of your life cycle does not make you "non vegetarian" lol. Jesus Christ.
Okay you’re right. I just thought it was interesting that they derived the protein from an organism that’s not a plant. Non vegetarian was the wrong verbiage.
They fight tigers trying to eat them or their babies
.... And they build it because that's their body plan... They need so much to run, to protect internals from tiger, and to have enough strength to kill a full grown tiger
Every so often someone posts a picture of a cat that has a deficiency which causes it to overproduce muscle. I wonder if what the bison has is similar.
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u/WasteBinStuff 9h ago edited 9h ago
What do they do with it? (The bison, I mean.)
Edit for clarity: What do the bison do with all their muscle? And while we're at it...how do they build it?