Grazing
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Grazing is feeding on growing herbage, attached algae, or phytoplankton. Grazing differs from predation because the organism being eaten is not killed, and it differs from the feeding of parasites by the fact that the two organisms do not stay together very long, nor is the grazer so limited in what it can eat. Grazing, in some contexts, is distinguished from browsing in that grazers eat grass and browsers eat leaves from trees.
The most commonly understood example of grazing is mammals feeding on grasslands although it can also refer to any plants, algae or plankton being eaten by reptiles, insects or birds.
Many smaller, selective herbivores follow grazers because they skim off the highest, tough growth of plants exposing tender shoots.
[edit] Common grazing animals
[edit] See also
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