What is Bulk Feeding?
Bulk feeding is one of five feeding strategies used by animals to obtain food. Bulk feeding is exhibited by animals that eat pieces of other organisms or swallow them whole. The other feeding strategies include filter feeding (employed by diverse marine organisms, from krill to the blue whale), deposit feeding (earthworms and other animals that filter or pick from soil), fluid feeding (hummingbirds, which feed on nectar, or spiders, which suck out the innards of insects), and phagocytosis (used by protozoa that engulf food particles). Bulk feeding is one of the most common feeding strategies among animals, especially among macroscopic animals, with which we are most familiar. Many herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores employ bulk feeding. Except for a few cetaceans (whales and relatives) that employ filter feeding, almost all organisms over a few inches in size engage in bulk feeding, including humans. It is one of the most efficient forms of feeding, especially on land — it involves
