====== Xtauh diet and agriculture ======
The "natural" behavior of the [[xtauh:]] can sometimes be difficult to characterize, overlaid as it is with learned and cultural behaviors that cannot be meaningfully separated from them or from each other. 

===== Diet =====
Xtauh are versatile feeders. Although a strong and ingrained preference for meat is found across almost all xtauh cultures, and therefore could cause them to be considered [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facultative|facultative]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore|carnivores]], they are capable of subsisting entirely without it, and indeed where meat is scarce, restricted, or absent, will do so without undue inconvenience. Even when meat is plentiful, hunter-gatherers will often eat plants or fungi if they are within easy reach.
 
Xtauh are not, generally speaking, restricted to feeding on a particular type of meat, and the targets of their consumption have consisted of a wide variety of animals. Although capable of consuming plant material, xtauh must discriminate between different types of material. In particular, neither their teeth nor their digestive systems are well-adapted for consuming leaves or stems, due to their high cellulose content and resulting toughness; nor does either material provide much energy for a xtauh's active metabolism. Although certain types of leafy vegetables can be made palatable by cooking, particularly stewing, they are generally a minor component of the xtauh diet, except when used as herbs or flavoring. The xtauh diet places far more value on more digestible and higher-energy parts of plants, such as fruits, nuts, tubers and other root crops, pulses, and grains. Some types of fungus are edible to xtauh as well; those that are perceived as having a "meaty" taste are favored foods, albeit considered somewhat inferior to actual meat.

===== Agriculture =====


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