Animals or people that search through waste or dead things to find food or useful items.
From Middle English 'scavager,' originally a tax collector in medieval cities who cleaned streets. The word evolved from Old North French 'scavage' (a tax), and came to mean someone who collects or gathers things, especially refuse.
Scavengers are nature's recyclers—hyenas, vultures, and crabs clean up ecosystems by eating dead animals, preventing disease and returning nutrients to soil. Without them, we'd be buried in corpses!
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