|
|
 Mammals have warm blood. Dogs, cats,
elephants and whales are all mammals. So are people. |
| Baby mammals drink milk from their
mother's body. |
| Mammals with pouches are called marsupials. Kangaroos and koalas are marsupials. |
| Mammals which lay eggs are called monotremes. Platypuses and echidnas are the only
monotremes. |
Mammals
are vertebrates, which means they have backbones. All mammals
have hair at some time of their life. In whales, the hair is present
before birth only.
Mammals are warm-blooded, which means that their body temperature stays about the same, no matter how hot or cold their surroundings are.
Mammals' hearts have four sections, called chambers, for the blood to move through. They have larger brains than other animals.
Mammals give birth to live young. They are the only animals that feed their young with milk from the mother's body. In most mammals, the females have a placenta which feeds the young as they develop inside the mother's uterus, or womb before they are born. Some examples of this kind of mammal are dogs, whales and dolphins, giraffes and... humans!
One group of mammals is called marsupial.
Like other mammals,
marsupials give birth
to live young, but they give birth to young that are still very
tiny and unformed. After the young are born, they climb up their
mother's belly and into a pouch, which is like a pocket in the
female's body. Inside the pouch, the young attaches itself to
a teat and remains there for some time, depending on which kind
of animal it is. Milk is fed to the baby through the teat. Any
ma
rsupial baby is called
a joey.
Probably the best known marsupials are the koala, kangaroo and possum.
A very small number of marsupials, such as the numbat and the red-tailed phascogale, do not have a pouch.
Most of the world's marsupials are native to Australia, and many of them are endangered.
Another group
of mammals is called monotreme.
They are mammals
that lay eggs.There are only two monotremes: the platypus and the echidna. The females usually lay
two eggs at a time. The eggs have a leathery skin, like reptile
eggs. After the eggs have hatched, the young are fed mother's
milk. However, the females do not have teats, and the young lick
milk that oozes from the skin of the mother's abdomen .
Acknowledge this source in your bibliography
like this:
Mammals, Marsupials
and Monotremes (2000).
[Online], Available: www.kidcyber.com.au
Antelope Aye-aye
Bear Bison Cheetah Elephant Panda
Giraffe Gorilla
Hippopotamus Meerkat
Orangutan Pinniped
Platypus Red-tailed
Phascogale Rhinoceros
Whales Zebra
Updated May 2002