Cats and dogs “lap” water - that is, they use their tongue to pull/drag water into their mouth.
How do other animals drink? Ungulates, rodents, birds, primates…?
At least some birds will dip their beaks into water, then lift their heads and tilt their beaks up so the water runs down their throats.
Horses appear to be able to suck water up.
Elephants drink to forget.
I think most mammals, and probably most reptiles too, lap, just like cats and dogs. Maybe apes and monkeys could used cupped hands, but I don’t know if they actually do. Elephants, of course, suck it up with their trunks and then squirt it into their mouths.
I saw a gibbon in a zoo once, who fashioned a sort of cup out of a piece of plastic wrapper that fell into his enclosure, and use that for drinking.
Horses, cattle, sheep, goats, all suck up water. They are very efficient drinkers. All the birds I’m familiar with dip their beaks and tilt their heads up.
As people have said, birds dip their beaks into the water and then tip their heads back. As for other animals, I had the pleasure of watching a squirrel in the Boston Public Garden stick its little head down and lap up water like a dog or cat. To be honest I had NEVER before seen a squirrel drink, save for the leucistic squirrel I took care of at the Museum of Science who drank from a bottle (the kind you see in mouse and hamster cages).
I’m sure that the majority of mammals in the wild drink by lapping up water, but at the museum the majority of them use bottles. The porcupines, opossum, skunks, rats, mice, flying squirrels, hedgehogs, prairie dog, woodchuck, ferret, meerkat, and rabbit all used bottles. The frogs, toads, salamanders, snakes, lizards, ducks, chickens, hawk, owls, and armadillos all got water bowls. The bobcat sadly passed away before my internship there, but I’m going to guess that she received a water bowl. The turtles and alligators of course just drank the water inside their tanks, which I’m guessing they just suck into their mouths when they feel like it.
Most birds drink this way, but pigeons and doves are able to suck up water. This also goes for the sand grouse (which were at one time thought to be closely related to pigeons on the basis of this characteristic).
Hummingbirds and some other nectar feeding birds can lap up liquids by extruding the tongue. Parrots can also lap up liquids.
I read something at sometime on how rare it is for animals to suck liquid as opposed to lapping. This is one of the first (non mosquito/vampire bat/ Edward Cullen) things that came up. Not what I was after but interesting anyway
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Is that because birds can’t swallow upside down?
Some birds do, many do not.
Pigeons, for example, simply suck water into their beaks, parrots lap water, some waterbirds bend their necks to bring the head parallel to the water so they don’t need to bend the head back, some birds wet their feathers and strain the water from their, and so on and so forth.
There isn’t a single way that birds drink.
I wouldn’t credit that without evidence. The ungulates, primates, cetaceans, afrotherians and bats don’t lap water, for example, and that takes in a large percentage of all mammals. The animals that do lap might have a slight edge because of the number of rodents, but it isn’t clear just based upon a mental list.
It’s really only the insect eaters that lap water. Turtles, snakes, monitors, and so forth simply plunge their head into the water and use their palate and tongue to suction water up, much like a human infant nursing.
Flamingos must turn their head upside down to drink water.
I mean, their digestive tract doesn’t have peristalsis. I heard birds can’t survive in space.
I once saw bats drinking from a lake at dusk. They skim low over the water and somehow scoop it up without landing. It was cool.
How do dolphins and whales take in water?
According to my readings, they get enough water from the food they eat. They don’t swallow salt water (much anyway).
Actually, they do lap. The fluid dynamics might be different, but since they’re using their tongue, it still counts as “lapping.”
Salt water aquatic mammals must have some adaptation to deal with the large amounts of salt they can’t keep from ingesting. I thought this was the case with Assateague Ponies, but I don’t see anything that indicates an adaptation other than small size.
I don’t remember any specifically, but I recall some animals receive all their water intake from the food they eat.
Koalas.