Can you guess the dentition?

I'm afraid to guess because I don't want to look stupid- please tell us!

Is it a carnivore, omnivore, or herbivore? []
 
I dont consider anyone stupid.
 

Okay, at the risk of looking stupid, I will guess that it's an herbivore  because those teeth look like plant-grinding teeth.  Now correct me!

VERY GOOD! It is indeed a herbivore.
 
 

You will notice however, that this particular herbivore doesn't have flat tooth surfaces. They are ridged and very sharp in order to bite of woody plant portions (stems and such). They don't have any "flat" teeth and do some grinding, but they will chew a bit, swallow it into the rumen, and then bring it back up into the mouth to chew again. This is called rumination or chewing cud. Not all herbivores chew their cud. Horses for instance, don't and neither do rabbits. They are considered non-ruminant herbivores. Rabbit's utilize corpophagy (eating feces) for additional nutrients. Rabbit's produce a special fecal pellet called cecotropes which they normally produce at night and are much softer than the "normal" pellets that we would see. The logic behind this is, their digestive system is so ineffective at absorbing nutrients, that they (rabbits) will "recycle" the cecotrope and take advantage of available nutrients that are already partially digested making it available for further digestion.
 
 

OK...I'll bite (no pun intended)...
It's a llama?

Ahhhhh...it's a deer.
I cheated though.

Yep, it sure is. Deer are considered browsers and a large part of their diet consists of tree parts. Goats are also browsers and closely related to deer.
 
 

Renee is there a point to this thread? [sm=happy.gif]

Very interesting, Renee.  Somehow I thought it would be a more exotic kind of animal, though, since you work with all those big cats.  I thought it might be an okapi or something really weird!

The reason I started this thread is to show that the dentition does not always play a clear picture of what an animal eats. I thought it would be interesting to explore the dental structure of many different animals.
Deer are herbivores, but have sharp, ridged teeth. Yes, some herbivores have flattened molars (mostly grazers), but some omnivores have very sharp pointed teeth (ex: bears) similar to carnivores.  
We need to consider the entire digestive system which includes the mouth to the anus.
 
The subject of dogs being carnivores (yes, they are listed in the order of carnivora) is just such an interesting subject surrounded by much controversy. The feeding behavior and GIT classification is omnivore, not carnivore.

Thanks Renee (*I think that's your name), if not, then thanks kennel keeper for starting this thread.  Yes, I do find that interesting.  Personally, and No, I'm not trying to get a nasty thread going, but I think dogs are omnivores.

You've got a good point about looking at the entire digestive system and not just the shape of the teeth.

I wouldn't have had a clue about how to start guessing what it was. Glad that Leslie did!

Lynn...LOL...I didn't have clue either...When I clicked on "Attachment (1)" in her post, I saw that the picture was named deerskull.jpg!

deer have been observed eating carrion. Humans clearly have flat grinding molars designed to handle vegetation, yet I certainly enjoy a good steak. I once accidently fed some liver dog treats to a horse, and he happily ate them. So I agree, we can't just look at the teeth.