Synonyms
Definition
Bovine diet refers to the feeding strategies, type, and amount of food ingested by animals that are part of the subfamily Bovinae.
Introduction
Bovines are part of the subfamily Bovinae and include the medium- to large-sized ungulates. Bovinae members are herbivores and possess cloven hooves (i.e., split into two toes) and two or four true horns that are not branched. Bovines are also ruminants, which make them well adapted to prairie environments, but they are found across most terrestrial environments. Examples of bovines are the domestic cattle (Bos taurus), bison (Bison bison), water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), yak (Bos grunniens), gaur (Bos gaurus), Cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer), eland (Taurotragus oryx), some species of antelopes (e.g., Tetracerus quadricornis), and the nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus). Most of the knowledge on diet and feeding habits of bovines comes from domestic species, but observation of their wild counterparts...
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Costa, J.H.C., Cantor, M.C., Neave, H.W. (2022). Bovine Diet. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55065-7_812
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