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Did you know that we are mammals? Yes, mammals are the group of animals that we belong to. There are only about 4,000 kinds of mammals which sounds like a lot, but when you consider there are 21,000 kinds of fish and 800,000 kinds of insects there really are very few of us! Here are some of the ways that mammals are alike....
Mammals are warm blooded, which means the temperature could be freezing cold ........
or boiling hot .......
But mammals’ bodies are built to maintain just about the same temperature all the time. Warm blood lets the mammals be very active and live in a wide variety of places. Mammals are everywhere. Polar bears live in very cold areas. Camels live in hot areas. Moles live under the ground. Bats live in caves and fly in the air. Dolphins live in the oceans. Fur and fat help protect mammals who live in the cold.
All mammals have fur or hair. Sometimes it's long hair covers its entire body like this....
and sometimes it has very short hair or there are just a few strands like this cat.....
Even mammals that swim under the water (like dolphins and whales) have hair.
We all drink Milk!
Most mammal babies live inside their mothers before they are born, just like humans. When the baby is big enough, it comes out of its mother’s body. Like this baby kangaroo.....
Most mammal babies live inside their mothers before they are born, just like humans. When the baby is big enough, it comes out of its mother’s body. Like this baby kangaroo.....
Even though some baby mammals are born different ways, they all drink milk that comes from their mothers' bodies. Baby pigs, dolphins, bats and elephants all drink milk! Because babies rely on their mother's milk to live, the mammal mommies have to care for their young. The length of time varies from a few weeks for mice to many years for humans!
People have "baby teeth" or "milk teeth" like this ......
The only exceptions are mammals like anteaters .....they don't have any teeth at all.
Mammal mothers are hard workers. Baby mammals learn from their mothers. Most of the mothers don’t really try to teach their babies, but the babies watch their mother and do the things they see her do. Through copying their mothers, baby mammals learn everything they need to survive.
So, what do mammals eat when they grow up? They eat all sorts of different things! Lions are mammals who eat meat ..... they are called carnivores.....
Cows are mammals who eat plants ....they are called herbivores.......
People are mammals who eat meat and plants – they are called omnivores.
Now take a look at these pictures and see how many different mammals there are and see if you can discover the names of each of them.....
Now it's time to test your knowledge on vertebrate animals. Click on these three links and try and get as many answers right as possible.....
Well, how did you get on? Tomorrow we're going to discover our final animal group. One clue... they're not vertebrate animals this, can you guess what they are?
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