Use of English

Animal Appetites

People often make funny claims about animals and food. We say someone eats like a horse or is as quiet as a mouse, but real animal habits are often more surprising. Some creatures are far (0) MORE selective about food than we imagine, while others will eat almost anything they come across. Take the giant panda, for example. Although it belongs to a group of animals that (1) .......... eat many different things, it lives mainly on bamboo. By contrast, goats have a reputation for eating everything, but they actually (2) .......... digest every object they bite. Meanwhile, birds such as eagles are much (3) .......... hunters than chickens, which mostly search the ground for seeds and insects. Comparisons like these are common, yet they can be misleading. The cheetah is one of the (4) .......... animals on land, but speed alone does not always help it catch food. In the sea, some whales consume far (5) .......... food in a single day than most land animals could ever manage. At the same time, the sloth is among the (6) .......... eaters in the animal world, and it can take days to digest a meal. So when people compare eating habits, they should be careful. Nature is often more complex (7) .......... simple sayings suggest, and animals cannot always do what we think they (8) .......... .