My Note: Since Chimpazee's and Gorilla's colon size is 2 times the size of their small intestine, they are primarily vegetarian - eating fruits, leaves, seeds. Only 5% is meat.
Since small intestine of humans is 2.5 times that of colon, humans must be primarily meat-eaters. Only 5% must be fruits/vegetables/seeds if we take the same proportion as Chimpanzee's meat consumption.
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What are chimpanzee digestive systems like compared to humans’?
Kevin Mu
Kevin Mu, animal enthusiast
Answered May 4, 2015
Relatively speaking, chimpanzees have much bigger large intestine (colon) than humans do. The larger colon is better for the chimps' low-quality, high-fiber diet because it allows the fibrous fruits, stems, and leaves to be digested (i.e., fermented by gut bacteria) for a longer period of time.
Just for reference, a typical chimp diet might look like: 60% fruit, 35% plants and seeds, 5% meat. The fiber content of a chimp diet is roughly 45%, while the fiber content of a "typical" hunter-gatherer diet is roughly 20%. As a result, humans have a larger small intestine, which is where a lot of nutrients are absorbed from high-quality, low-fiber foods.
This is a good link to learn more: What is the "Optimal" Diet for Humans? (Part 2). The graph below is from the cited link, and it's a bit hard to read but you can see that humans have a high small-intestine to large-intestine ratio, while chimps have a very low ratio. Gorillas have the lowest ratio among all apes measured in the graph, and this is expected because gorillas eat the lowest-quality diets, with 2/3 of their diet being stems and leaves, and the remaining 1/3 being fruit.
Since small intestine of humans is 2.5 times that of colon, humans must be primarily meat-eaters. Only 5% must be fruits/vegetables/seeds if we take the same proportion as Chimpanzee's meat consumption.
***
What are chimpanzee digestive systems like compared to humans’?
Kevin Mu
Kevin Mu, animal enthusiast
Answered May 4, 2015
Relatively speaking, chimpanzees have much bigger large intestine (colon) than humans do. The larger colon is better for the chimps' low-quality, high-fiber diet because it allows the fibrous fruits, stems, and leaves to be digested (i.e., fermented by gut bacteria) for a longer period of time.
Just for reference, a typical chimp diet might look like: 60% fruit, 35% plants and seeds, 5% meat. The fiber content of a chimp diet is roughly 45%, while the fiber content of a "typical" hunter-gatherer diet is roughly 20%. As a result, humans have a larger small intestine, which is where a lot of nutrients are absorbed from high-quality, low-fiber foods.
This is a good link to learn more: What is the "Optimal" Diet for Humans? (Part 2). The graph below is from the cited link, and it's a bit hard to read but you can see that humans have a high small-intestine to large-intestine ratio, while chimps have a very low ratio. Gorillas have the lowest ratio among all apes measured in the graph, and this is expected because gorillas eat the lowest-quality diets, with 2/3 of their diet being stems and leaves, and the remaining 1/3 being fruit.
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