I need to come up with about 10 attributes of a mammal. Any suggestions?
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ABOVE LINK IS QUITE INTERESTING
1. The possession of a placenta in the females which allows the mother’s system to nourish the growing young without being attacked by the mother’s immune system. This applies to all the Eutheria which is why they are called placental mammals. Cows, horses, dogs, cats and people are all placental mammals.
2. Mammals have only two sets of teeth.
3. Mammals are heterodontic, meaning that their teeth are different shapes, except those with no teeth at all. We have some or all of:- incisors, canines, molars and premolars. Reptiles and fish have teeth that are all basically the same, though they can vary in size throughout the mouth. See image above.
4. The Buccal Cavity (the mouth) has a false palate as a roof, meaning that the nostrils do not lead directly into he mouth. Effectively, this means that if your mouth is full of food you can still breathe, but a reptile has to breathe around its food.
5. The body is maintained at a constant temperature, meaning mammals are endothermic; they generate heat within their bodies metabolically and also have special cooling mechanisms. Not all mammals choose the same temperature, and some are not very good at it. Bats, for instance, tend to cool down considerably when at rest, this is partly because of the large surface area for heat loss supplied by their wings. Finally there are the Naked Mole Rats, Heterocephalus glaber which have lost this ability, probably because they do not need it anymore. Birds are also endothermic. For more information on this see – On Being Warm-blooded.
All mammals are warm blooded.
Most young are born alive.
They have hair or fur on their bodies.
Every mammal is a vertebrate.
All mammals have lungs to breathe air.
Mammals feed milk to their babies.
2. MOST are land-abiding (as you know, some species such as Homo Sapien, are universal).
I can’t come up with ten, look at :[email protected]. There will probably be info there are go to ANY “M” encyclopedia and look under “mammal.”
live births
feeds milk to there babies
breaths oxygen
raises/ stays with their child
has a back bone
warm blooded
teeth
middle ear bone
4 chamber heart
