🎲

🦁 Animal world 🐘 Mammals

Mammals

The flying lemur (colugo) is an animal from Southeast Asia that moves from tree to tree by spreading the skin flaps joining its neck, legs and tail. It doesn't really fly, but it can glide through the air for up to 90 m. Among Alaska's fur seals, males live with the females only in the summer breeding season; the rest of the year the males stay in the Gulf of Alaska while the females live far to the south. The star-nosed mole has 22 pink, fleshy feelers around the tip of its snout, which it uses to find the insects and worms it eats. The zebra is an African mammal like a striped horse: its black and white stripes help it hide in tall grass. The zebra in this picture is a Grévy's zebra.
The flying lemur (colugo) is an animal from Southeast Asia that moves from tree to tree by spreading the skin flaps joining its neck, legs and tail. It doesn't really fly, but it can glide through the air for up to 90 m. Among Alaska's fur seals, males live with the females only in the summer breeding season; the rest of the year the males stay in the Gulf of Alaska while the females live far to the south. The star-nosed mole has 22 pink, fleshy feelers around the tip of its snout, which it uses to find the insects and worms it eats. The zebra is an African mammal like a striped horse: its black and white stripes help it hide in tall grass. The zebra in this picture is a Grévy's zebra.

📖 In short

Mammals are a big group of animals whose babies drink their mother's milk. Cats, dogs, cows, horses, elephants and whales are all mammals, and so are you! There are thousands of kinds in the world.

🤩 Did you know?

  • There are more than 4500 kinds of mammals.
  • The blue whale is about 30 meters long and weighs more than 150 tonnes.
  • The platypus and the echidna are two strange mammals that lay eggs!
  • Some whales grow a few hairs before they're born.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 How do we know it's a mammal?

Mammals have things in common: they feed their babies milk, have hair or fur at some time in their lives, have a backbone, breathe air with lungs, and are always warm-blooded.

🔍 All shapes and sizes

Some mammals are tiny, like the mouse-like shrew, and some are enormous, like the blue whale, the biggest animal that has ever lived on Earth.

💡 On land, in water and in the air

Most mammals live on land, but whales and dolphins live in the sea, bats fly through the air and moles live underground.

🎯 Caring mothers

Mammals look after their young more than most other animals do, protecting and feeding them and teaching them to find food and escape danger.

🧩 Test yourself

1 What do baby mammals feed on?

2 Which of these animals is a mammal?

3 There are more than ?? kinds of mammals.

4 Which picture shows “Mammals”?

🦁 Discover more