Animal eating habbit question?

[Aaron]

Henry Yiu wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I am presetly preparing a class for kids and need some basic science
> information.  Can anyone tell me what kind of animal eat, digest, and
> excrete at the same time all the time, and what kind of animal eat, then
> digest, then excrete, before it eats again?
> 
> Thanks for your help.

Well, some triatomid bugs (the vector of Chagas' disease) defecate during 
their meal.  However, that doesn't mean the the food eaten was excreted 
right away.  Strickly speaking, defecation is usually not a form of 
excretion for humans or generally mammals(though it is true for insects). 
To answer your second question, female mosquitoes bloodfeed for each 
batch of eggs.  i.e.  They digest and process the food and oviposition 
before they take another blood meal.  I'm sure there're a lot of other 
animals which fit into one of the two categories.  These are just two 
nice examples.

A.