Proximate analysis (PA) is a feedstuff analysis (Greenfield and Southgate 2003). PA mimics the animal digestion process and quantifies shares of organic and inorganic materials. It estimates the relative amounts of water (moisture), ash, crude fat (ether extract, lipid), crude protein, crude fiber and Nitrogen-free extract (sugars and starches) in a food item (Henneberg and Stohmann 1860). This dataset comes from MammalBase (www.mammalbase.net) and is updated periodically. The chemical compound data for proximate analysis of food items come from primary sources. The focus is on wild animal diet components and less conventional human foods, avoiding (but not excluding entirely) cultivated crops or bred animals. In particular, domesticated fruits are excluded from the database using the definition and classification of fruit commodities by FAO (1996). Domesticated fruits have less fibre, protein, and calcium but more sugar than wild fruits (Oftedal and Allen 1996; Schwitzer et al. 2009). Many of the reported values miss the moisture. For this reason, we discarded water and renormalised the chemical composition on a dry matter basis. Taxonomic standardisation of the food items We matched all food item and chemical compound data against the taxonomic backbone from the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) (http://www.itis.gov). ITIS provides a taxonomic hierarchy, which enabled calculating average Chemical compound data for higher taxonomic levels. References Atwater WO, Woods CD, 1896. The chemical composition of American food materials. Farmers' Bulletin No. 28. US Department of Agriculture. Washington. FAO: Draft definition and classification of commodities, w2979. http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/faoinfo/economic/faodef/fdef08e.htm (1996) Greenfield, H., Southgate, D.A.: Food composition data: production, management, and use. Food & Agriculture Org. (2003) Henneberg, W., 1860. Beiträge zur begründung einer rationellen fütterung der wiederkäuer: Praktisch-landwirthschaftliche und chemischphysiologische untersuchungen. Für landwirthe und physiologen (Vol. 1). CA Schwetschke und sohn. Oftedal, O.T., Allen, M.E.: The feeding and nutrition of omnivores with emphasis on primates (1996)

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