Black-necked grebe with chick (Podiceps nigricollis) Geoorde fuut
Grebes eat their own feathers to slow down digestion.. The eat small fish, brine shrimp and aquatic insects, which have rigid exoskeletons, making them both tough to digest and potentially damaging to the intestines.
The feathers enter a three-part stomach — first a storage chamber, then a gizzard, and lastly a pouch - and form dense balls in both the gizzard and final pouch. This appears to slow the passage of food long enough that the food can be safely liquified. The tough bits are then regurgitated within a ball of feathers, much the way owls spit up pellets of bones from their prey.
N3MP, The Netherlands
Black-necked grebe with chick (Podiceps nigricollis) Geoorde fuut
Grebes eat their own feathers to slow down digestion.. The eat small fish, brine shrimp and aquatic insects, which have rigid exoskeletons, making them both tough to digest and potentially damaging to the intestines.
The feathers enter a three-part stomach — first a storage chamber, then a gizzard, and lastly a pouch - and form dense balls in both the gizzard and final pouch. This appears to slow the passage of food long enough that the food can be safely liquified. The tough bits are then regurgitated within a ball of feathers, much the way owls spit up pellets of bones from their prey.
N3MP, The Netherlands