There’s herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores, but is there any category of animal life that can sustain itself on anything else that isn’t related to living organisms?
Is the only known example of this at the moment basically…Plants, give or take the particular species & how one may interpret the question of relation to other life?
Chemotrophs are organisms that feed on chemicals not produced by other living things. The most famous example is the bacteria that live near underwater hydrothermal vents. These vents constantly replenish the chemicals that the bacteria feed on. The vents don’t provide the sort of chemicals an animal could eat; only microorganisms are able to do the chemistry necessary to obtain energy from them. However, the giant tube worms found near hydrothermal vents are animals that sustain themselves by hosting a symbiotic colony of such microorganisms.
The very first living things were probably chemotrophs - photosynthesis evolved later. (Fun fact: humans are causing a mass extinction, but we’re not the first living things to do that. The honor goes to the early photosynthetic organisms which filled Earth’s atmosphere with poisonous gas.)
However, the giant tube worms found near hydrothermal vents are animals that sustain themselves by hosting a symbiotic colony of such microorganisms.
That’s wicked! This is rekindling my interest in microbiology that I’d almost forgotten. Also this is probably the closest example of what I was wondering about if I understand this right, in the usual unexpected way that biology begets.
Scavengers do not consume life, only the remains.
I think that technically speaking, predators (most of them) also consume only the remains. They are just looking for them with their teeth, not the eyes
There are also organisms that live off of thermal energy, which I think are not part of the plant kingdom. But I could be mistaken.
