关键词: 草食性哺乳动物, 食粪行为, 硬便, 软便, 食粪节律

Abstract: Coprophagy is widespread among small-and medium-sized mammalian herbivores. These animals have a colonic separation mechanism , by which they can form two kinds of feces. Coprophagy provides another avenue for some species to recover nutrients , vitamins , microbial proteins and short chain fatty acids which produced in the hindgut. The digestibility of high fibre food is improved by caecotrophy. The daily rhythm of reingestion is the result of trade-off between the risk of feeding and coprophagy. The ingestion of soft feces is more strongly related to diet than to taxonomic association. This paper reviewed the coprophagy and its evolutionary and nutritional significance in herbivorous small mammals.

Key words: Herbivores, Coprophagy, Soft feces, Hard feces, Daily rhythm of feces reingestion