Australian scavengers don’t just eat everything and slink away. They approach a carcass like a buffet

Theo Allofs/Getty When scientists talk about scavengers, you might imagine an animal sniffing out or stumbling across a carcass, eating as much as possible, and slinking away.

But like all foods, a dead animal holds a variety of macronutrients – carbohydrates, lipids (fats), and protein – all within the same carcass, or meal.

Just as an egg has a high-protein white and a higher fat yolk, carcasses are similar.

Scavengers are typically thought of as unfussy scroungers that will eat whatever is available, but our new research suggests this isn’t the case.

So, which part of the carcass does a hungry dingo, wedge-tailed eagle, or red fox eat first? A red fox sits next to a kangaroo carcass.

Niraj Meisuria How animals feed We know that many species – mostly herbivores or animals in a lab context – choose foods to meet their nutritional targets .

Like a bodybuilder aiming to hit a protein goal, wild spider monkeys and orangutans choose foods that allow them to maintain a stable intake of protein.

While there’s no reason a similar phenomenon should not exist in wild carnivores, there is little to no data on the feeding choices of carnivores.

This lack of data is due to the logistical challenges in tracking them as they can be very elusive, and typically have large home ranges.

Scavengers offer scientists a great model for examining how animals decide what to eat.

If different parts of a carcass offer different nutritional rewards, then scavenging may be less like eating leftovers, and more like choosing from a buffet.

To find out, we monitored the carcasses of 40 eastern grey kangaroos in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales over a summer and a winter, with camera traps recording all activity.

Three common and important scavengers in this area are dingoes , wedge-tailed eagles and red foxes .

We took note of the kangaroo body parts they fed on, and how long they fed each time.