-3
$\begingroup$

As part of a series on plant animals, plantimals if you will, I am now asking about the digestive system, that is the mouth, stomach and intestines. All known animal life has some kind of digestive system, but what would a mobile plant's look like?

How would a plantimals digestive system work? What would it look like? How could it come in being?

Previous Questions

Heart

Muscles

Eyes

Ears

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
3
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ Strictly speaking, not all animals have digestive systems, and of those that do, many have very different digestive systems than the one you describe. $\endgroup$
    – TheBlackCat
    Commented Jan 19, 2017 at 20:46
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ It's difficult to keep asking "what's the botanic equivalent to..." questions because plants are not animals. There is no true plant "eye" or "heart" or "stomach" so all answers must speculate. In addition, there are a hundred different ways creatures can digest! My guess is as good as the next for what it "would" look like, as opposed to "could", which makes this both broad and opinion-based. $\endgroup$
    – Zxyrra
    Commented Jan 20, 2017 at 1:19
  • $\begingroup$ Planimals are animals pretending to be plants and not plants trying to turn into animals. Why! Because the hypothetical biology of mobile plants doesn't make any sense (which is the reason I called it hypothetical). $\endgroup$
    – a4android
    Commented Jan 20, 2017 at 4:41

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1
$\begingroup$

Extremely acidic or basic saliva that could completely break down a living thing would be best i suppose. If you want them to be able to keep using their mouth as they digest then maybe you could have something similar to the blood oak in the edge chronicles that pulls its victim into its slippery maw lined with teeth and crushes its victim to death before digesting it and sending the nutrients out from its fleshy inner passage out to the rest of the tree and the roots.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
1
  • $\begingroup$ Digestion takes place using enzymes, not acits or bases. $\endgroup$
    – JDługosz
    Commented May 24, 2017 at 17:46
10
$\begingroup$

It could be similar to the existing carnivorous plants that we already have on our planet.

This way the plantimal could try to lure its food into its mouth and then slowly digest it. All you need is a pouch of some kind a and enzymes which can be produced via symbiotic bacteria or directly by the plant.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .