Mammals

Dalton SettlesPeriod 6

March 31, 2010

Marsupials

• Their young develop in a pouch.

• After growing inside the pouch, the young are forced to live on their own.

• The most common marsupials are kangaroos, and opossums.

Monotremes

• Monotremes lay eggs.• The eggs are soft shelled

and incubated outside the body.

• There are only three types of monotremes know today. The duckbill platypus and two types of anteaters.

Placental Mammals

• In placental mammals, nutrients, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and wastes are exchanged between the embryo and the mother through the placenta.

• Insectivores: long narrow snouts and sharp claws that are used for digging.

• Sirenians: herbivores that live in rivers, bays, and warm coastal waters. These are large slow moving animals.

More Placental Mammals

• Cetaceans: animals that lead a fully aquatic lives but must come to the surface to breathe.

• Chiropterans: winged mammals, and the only mammals capable of true flight.

• Rodents: single pair of long curved incisor teeth in both their upper and lower jaw.

• Perrisodactyls: hoofed animal with an odd number of toes on each foot.

• Artiodactyls: hoofed animals that have and even number of toes on each foot.

• Proboscideans: mammals with trunks, like elephants.• Xenarthrans: small mammals, most have no teeth.

Biogeography

• There has been convergent evolution around the world because there are many similar climates.

• Convergent Evolution: the appearance of similar structure in organism of different lines of descent.

Bibliography

• Photograph. Web. <http://soer.justice.tas.gov.au/2003/image/559/ilw/p-platypus_m.jpg>.

• Web. <http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/mammals/Placental.shtml>.

• Web. <http://www.sacrs.org.za/ecm21/gallery/giraffe-01300813b.jpg>.

• Web. <http://www.royalpetclub.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/541447Australian-Kangaroo-Posters1.jpg>.

• Miller, and Levine. Biology. Print