There’s herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores, but is there any category of animal life that can sustain itself on anything else that isn’t related to living organisms?

Is the only known example of this at the moment basically…Plants, give or take the particular species & how one may interpret the question of relation to other life?

  • ALostInquirerOPEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Very close, it seems! At a glance of the wiki page it seems to affirm my suspicion, emphasis mine:

    While lithotrophs in the broader sense include photolithotrophs like plants, chemolithotrophs are exclusively microorganisms; no known macrofauna possesses the ability to use inorganic compounds as electron sources.

    Thanks for the link, I was unaware of what these might be called on any scale. I wasn’t really sure if inorganic compounds might be the appropriate terminology to search by for this question, so really appreciate the reply!