ANIMALS (mammals)

The mammals :

    About 65 million years ago, a gigantic comet struck the Earth and upset the climate of our planet. It was a disaster for the dinosaurs, "they were completely exterminated", but it allowed another class of animals to replace them. Mammals were little more than worried, nocturnal little creatures at the time, but they had already developed some of the traits that were to help them take hold, such as hair, warm blood, and mammary glands.

    Once the dinosaurs were eliminated, mammals entered a new phase in their evolution. They proliferated in thousands of new forms, conquering land, sea and air to become the largest and most spectacular animals on Earth.

Breast milk :

    As their name suggests (mammals comes from the Latin mamma, which means udder), mammals feed their young with the milk they produce. In many species, parents take advantage of this stage to teach the young they are feeding essential survival methods. The more intelligent mammals, such as humans and orangutans, which have a lot to learn, spend longer time with their mothers.

Characteristics :

    Mammals exhibit various unique traits that set them apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. They have mammary glands that produce milk, and hair to keep them warm.

 >> the whales have lost their hair.

 Mammals also differ in the characteristics of their teeth, and jaws, ears, internal organs, and blood cells.

The smells :

    Most mammals use body odor to communicate.

 With the urine with which it sprinkles the ground, a rhino leaves a unique scent and communicates to other rhinos, its age, sex, social status and whether it wishes to reproduce.

Locomotion !

    The first true mammals were probably four-legged animals that scampered like shrews. After the dinosaurs disappeared, they discovered new ways of getting around. ● Some have developed wings.

 ● In others, the limbs have become swimmers.

 ● Thousands have retained their four legs, but today range from silent hunters prowling the land to eagle climbers nesting in trees.

》》》》 Notes !!

 ○ Mammals have a skeletal structure with four limbs, each ending with an average of five fingers.

 ○ Mammals have larger brains than other animals and are more intelligent.

 ○ Many mammals have outer ears to channel sound waves.

 ○ Mustaches and eyelashes are specialized types of hair.

 ○ Mammals have three types of teeth, [canines, incisors, and molars], aligned for precision.

 ○ The lower jaw is made up of a single bone, which articulates directly on the skull.

 ○ Mammals are the only animals covered with hair.

Skeleton :

Mammals look very different from each other, but all have the same basic skeleton. Evolution has simply changed the size of various bones, hence the variety of shapes.

 Birds, reptiles, fish and amphibians also have this type of skeleton.

 Scientists call all of these animals vertebrates {they have a backbone}.

A very strange mammal :

    Man is a mammal. Our species, Homo sapiens, belongs to the great ape family, along with chimpanzees, ourangutans and gorillas.

 >> In some ways, we are very special mammals.

 ● Our brain is abnormally developed and we have lost most of our hair.

 ● We are the only species of mammals that walk on two legs, and perhaps the only one with a complex language.