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I notice in daily life that animal fat typically has a higher melting point than plant fat does. I wonder the reason why this happens. What exactly contributes to this difference? Is it because of the difference between molecular structure? I understand that substances have different melting point because the intermolecular forces are different. But how does intermolecular force vary between animal fat and plant fat. Is it possible for any animal fat to have lower melting point than plant fat?

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    $\begingroup$ Is it possible that "daily life" is imposing a selection bias? That is, we mostly see plant fats in the form of things like cooking oils (or cocoa butter), which are selected because they have low enough melting points to be liquids. $\endgroup$
    – jamesqf
    Commented Dec 26, 2018 at 18:30

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Plants contains monounsaturated fats while animals contains saturated fats. The high proportions of fatty acids in animal fat means it takes longer to heat it up. I don’t know the melting points of different things off the top of my head, but you can find a meat that is as unsaturated as possible and compare it to the most saturated plant fat to test your last question.

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