What animals eat watermelons? Well, a lot of them. Humans are not alone who love the juiciness and refreshing sweet taste of watermelons that make them one of the best summer treats.
Almost any domestic animal or bird that eat fruits or is an omnivore who can eat fruit will like watermelon. Many wild omnivores and herbivores both adore it too.
In fact, if some wild animals or birds are naturally present in the proximity of your house, you might have to fight to preserve the melons you are growing from those wild creatures.
Watermelons contain moisture which makes them a common choice for many animals in the summer as its relatively healthy and hydrating. Once you get past the skin, it is enjoyably edible and consumed by a variety of hosts of different species.
What Animals Eat Watermelon
1. Coyotes and Raccoons
Coyotes are watermelon lovers. They usually hold them in their teeth, seize them off the vine, break it open and eat the flesh all the way to the rind.
They are quite sneaky and mostly active during the night, so it’s hard to capture them munching the melons, but they leave behind the bite marks, and by the type of damage and the scope of the bite spots, you can identify them.
Raccoons particularly love the ripe watermelons. They usually drill from the crust and start eating the inside of the fruit, but they don’t typically eat a whole melon.
Raccoons leave behind paw prints on the melons that look like tiny hands about the diameter of 2 to 3 inches, says Alderleaf Wilderness College.
Watermelon is a fruit that’s safe to consume for domestic and wild birds. As one of the chief melons available, these fruits are a great alternative for multi-bird houses or larger domestic species.
Though melons are not as famous and common as other sickly-sweet grapes or fruits, most birds will peck at the fleshy insides even if some can’t take in the rest.
Deer don’t actually eat the skin of a watermelon. They just make a hole in the crust and love eating the inside lycopene. Lycopene is the internal and the most delicious part of the watermelon, which can be pink or red in color.
To keep the deer away from your melon garden, Human hair (from a barber or hairdresser, for instance) and bar soap are said to be used.
For whatever reason, they hate the smell of an Irish Spring soap. You can erect several poles around the watermelon patch and hang a bar of it in each.
4. Elephants and Hippopotamuses
Watermelon is a greatly desired fruit for elephants and hippopotamus. Elephants use their foot to crack the melons and consume the sugary flesh part. They do have a sweet tooth as they love to eat sugarcane and melons.
Rats can eat melons without any difficulties. It’s even suggested to take in melons into their diet accompanying with other food as far as you keep an equilibrium of food and don’t surfeit them with one particular food.
Watermelon peels are a great delicacy for rabbits. All the green portions of the watermelon are okay for rabbits. The watermelon rind has two portions, the green part and the white part. It is suggested to give your rabbit the peels rather than the lycopene (flesh).
Groundhogs are herbivore animals. They like nearly all herbs and vegetables in your garden. They can eat all portions of plants. Additionally, they also like fruits, like pears and apples. Watermelon is one of their preferred fruits.
Cats also eat watermelons, but it’s not the sweetness of the watermelon that attracts the cats. They have unique reasons for their fondness for melons.
Cats are sweet blind animals — they do not have a sweet tooth. Research has demonstrated that cat, like numerous other flesh-eaters, has an absence of sweetness receptors.
Actually, it’s the odour of a ripe melon that makes cats salivate. Also, watermelons comprise the identical amino acids as meat and have an aroma and look jaggedly similar to meat, due to this reason that most cats like the inside portion (flesh) of the watermelon.
Everyone honey watermelon, even the dogs. But it’s only safe for dogs to eat melons with some precautions. Seeds of watermelon can cause intestinal obstruction, so make certain you remove them.
10. Insects and Pests
Though there are numerous insects that would like to take a taste out of your melons, some are more common guests to the patch than others.
To efficiently govern watermelon pests, we need to understand precisely what is bothering your plants so you can snitch the offender and not upset the helpful insects that are trying to back your cause.
11. Grizzly Bears
Bears in captivity are often pleased with a juicy watermelon as a munch. These watermelons are frozen to keep the bears cool on warmer days.
A bear can simply nibble into the watermelon with its teeth, letting them get to the juicy flesh. Their flat grinders and sharp nails allow them to easily grip and munch into the fruit.
Watermelons are provided not only to brown grizzly bears but polar bears like them too. A polar bears habitation is snowy and cold.
Other than these, the following animals also eat watermelons.
Animals in Captivity:
- Panda bears
- Crocodiles and Alligators
- Guinea Pigs
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So, a variety of animals eat watermelons. Watermelon is grown almost anywhere with a tropical or subtropical climate. It’d be difficult to find a creature that didn’t like watermelon.
Its combination of sugariness and succulence makes it a perfect snack for just about any living animal. Depending on where you live, it is certainly difficult to keep animals like elephants, raccoons, bears, deer, lemurs and monkeys out of your watermelon patch.
I would suggest commercial farmers might fence or guard their patches.
This article provides you the knowledge about all those animals that eat watermelon in overall.