Page 10 - Mammal (DK Eyewitness)

Making sense of

mammals

We can appreciate the beauty and wonder of
Noah’s Ark took on board two of every mammal mammals without knowing their scientific names
species - one male and one female
or evolutionary origins. But a deeper understanding
of body structure, behavior, and evolution needs, like any aspect of science, a framework
for study. This framework is provided by taxonomy, the grouping and classifying of living
things according to natural relationships. Every living animal has a scientific name that is
recognized across the world and in all languages. This avoids confusion, since local or common
names vary from country to country, and even from place to place within the same country.
Each kind of animal is known as a species. Species are grouped together into genera, genera are
grouped into families, families into orders, and orders into classes . . . and this is where we can
stop, since all mammals belong to one class, Mammalia. The following
four pages show the skulls of representatives of the 20 or so main
orders of living mammals, and list the types of animals that belong in
each one. The colored lines indicate their probable evolutionary
relationships to one another.

EDENTATES (Edentata)
Includes anteaters, armadillos, sloths.
About 30 species Armadillo Monkey
Skull shown: Greater long-nosed armadillo
See also pp. 22, 27, 29, 51
MONKEYS AND APES (Primates)
Includes lemurs, bushbabies,
MARSUPIALS OR POUCHED lorises, pottos, tarsiers,
MAMMALS (Marsupialia) marmosets, tamarins, monkeys,
Includes kangaroos, wallabies, apes, humans.
wombats, opossums, dunnarts, About 180 species
bandicoots, cuscuses. Kangaroo Skull shown: Vervet monkey
About 270 species See also pp. 2, 3, 6-7, 16-17, 21,
Skull shown: Mountain 22-3, 29, 37, 38, 44, 49, 58
cuscus
See also pp, 3, 4, 10
20, 22, 27, 30-31

Pangolin
Platypus
PANGOLINS (Pholidota)
Pangolins
About 7 species
Skull shown: Chinese pangolin
See also p. 27

EGG-LAYING MAMMALS
(Monotremata)
Platypuses, echidnas.
Generally regarded as
the most “primitive”
mammals, since they lay INSECTIVORES (Insectivora)
eggs (like reptiles) and Includes shrews, moles, golden
do not give birth to moles, desmans, hedgehogs,
formed young. moonrats, solenodons, tenrecs.
3 species About 375 species
Skull shown: Platypus Skull shown: Greater moonrat Shrew
See also pp. 16, 25, 27, 30, 56 See also pp. 3, 24-5, 51, 57, 61

(c) 2011 Dorling Kindersley. All Rights Reserved.