Submitted by Kay1636 t3_z6azff in explainlikeimfive
I'm sorry for asking this. But I always wondered how come cows and buffaloes who only eat grass and stuff get so big? Here I am working out 5 days a week with my job and eating a lot of meat and getting normal results. Sorry again, I have no intention of annoying anyone.
WexfordHo t1_iy0cmj2 wrote
The largest terrestrial animals have always been herbivores, elephants, rhinos, mammoths, giant tree-munching dinosaurs, and so on. I’m not sure why you think that would be different for buffalo.
Being an herbivore means that you have ready access to vast quantities of food that most animals can’t extract nutrition from, but you can. Having access to large amounts of food allows for gigantism in animals, and being a large herbivore means that the predators capable of taking you down must either be large and powerful, or run in packs. Being large also means you can support large fat stores which help you to get through leaner times, and also withstand very cold weather.