What Animals Eat Fruit?
Many animals feed on fruit, such as birds, fruit bats, mice, civets, deer and chimpanzees. Some animals subsist entirely on fruit while others, such as foxes, feed on a variety of foods including fruit.
Fruit bats live entirely on fruits, such as mangoes, bananas and avocados. They are important pollinators. As the bats sip nectar from flowers, pollen gets caught in their fur and carried to other flowers. The seeds from the fruit are distributed through the bats’ excrement. Fruit bats are distinct from their insect-eating cousins. They have small ears, long noses and resemble foxes.
Orangutans are another mammal with a fruit-filled diet. Ninety percent of their food is fruit, coming from at least 400 different types of plants and trees. Their favorite food is a durian, a spine-covered fruit with a strong aroma. Orangutans play an important role in the life cycle of fruit by dispersing the seeds throughout their rain forest home. Many of those seeds must pass through the orangutans; digestive tracts in order to grow.
Many species of birds, including the American robin, blue jay, scarlet tanager, bluebird, purple finch and house wren eat fruit when available, particularly berries, such as cherries, raspberries, blueberries and elderberries.
