Final answer:
Rodents chew on skeletal material to maintain their continuously growing teeth, process a variety of foods with their specialized heterodont teeth and to possibly gain nutritional benefits like calcium and phosphorus.
Step-by-step explanation:
Rodents chew on skeletal material because their teeth are specialized for different feeding functions. These functions include cutting, tearing, and grinding food. While rodents chew for primarily dietary reasons, they can also engage in this behavior to maintain their teeth, which continuously grow throughout their lives. In addition mammals like rodents have heterodoxy teeth which means they have different types of teeth adapted for specific purposes, allowing them to process a wide range of foods. Mammalian teeth are critical to digestion as they can cut, tear and grind facilitating easier and quicker digestion.
Finally chewing on skeletal material might also relate to gaining nutrients such as calcium and phosphorus, which are abundant in bones. This behavior can be especially observed in scavenger decomposers, which consume the soft tissues of dead animals and may also break down bone material.