What It's All About
Kids are generally very eager to learn about mammals and may already have a favorite species that they know some interesting information about. Do they have any pets or farm animals? What's their favorite animal and why?
Mammal Makeover
What do you and a giraffe have in common? You're both mammals, so you share a lot of features. Here are some of the main characteristics of mammals.
Mammals are warm blooded. No matter if they live in the desert or the Arctic, mammals' bodies maintain the same temperature, making them very adaptable to life in a wide variety of places.
All mammals have hair or fur. Even mammals that live in the water, like whales, have a tiny bit of hair around their mouths. Mammals' hair is made of keratin, which is also what our fingernails are made of. An important difference of mammal hair is that it is dead. Other creatures, such as bumblebees and spiders, may look like they have hair, but it's actually a living part of the animal. If you tried to cut the hair, it would hurt and injure the creature.
Mammal babies drink their mother's milk. Most mammal babies grow inside their mother's womb, although there are a few exceptions, such as the duck-billed platypus, which lays eggs.
Mammals are all vertebrate animals, Which means they all have spines.
Have fun learning about mammals by giving your students mammal makeovers. Each student should choose a different mammal. You can supply a list to choose from or have books that they can look through. If you can, use a digital camera to take headshots of each of the students and print up nice, large pictures of their faces. Otherwise, you can have them bring in photos from home, or even have them draw themselves. Have them glue their face onto a large piece of paper and then draw the mammal's body and other features around their face. Depending on the grade level and time, you can have them simply write “I am a ” or you can have them go into more depth about who they are, where they live, what they eat, what their home looks like, and other fascinating facts.
There are only about 4,000 kinds of mammals. It may sound like a lot, but compared to other species, mammals are a tiny group. For example, there are 21,000 kinds of fish and 800,000 kinds of insects. And there are more creatures yet to be discovered.
The Mammals with the Most
From the tiny mouse to the huge elephant, mammals come in all shapes and sizes, and they all have special talents that help them survive. Here are some amazing record-setting mammal facts:
The fastest land mammal is the cheetah, which can run at speeds of over 60 miles per hour for up to 200 to 300 yards.
The largest animal in the world is the blue whale, which can grow to more than 100 feet long and weigh more than 150 tons. The blue whale is the largest animal that's ever existed, even larger than the largest dinosaur! Its tongue alone is larger than an elephant.
One of the best jumpers is the red kangaroo, which can leap forty feet in one bound and can jump more than ten feet high.
The tallest animal is the giraffe, which grows over nineteen feet high.
The loudest animal is, again, the blue whale, whose rumblings can be heard up to 500 miles away. A blue whale's call can be as loud as 188 decibels, louder than a commercial jet engine, which reaches about 120 decibels.
The sperm whale can hold its breath the longest — over an hour. This allows it to dive to the ocean floor for food.
Shrews evolved 54 million years ago. Today some species have such fast metabolisms that they need to eat up to 1.3 times their own weight in food every day.
How do your students stack up to the mammals? Who can run a twenty-five-yard dash the fastest? How long does it take? It would take a cheetah less than a second. Measure out forty feet on the ground and see how many hops it takes to get to the other side. A red kangaroo could do it in one leap. Make a chalk mark ten feet high on a wall. Have your students jump in place next to it. Who gets the highest? How high can the red kangaroo hop? Mark off 100 feet on the floor and have the children lie down head-to-toe to see how many of them it would take to be as long as a blue whale. Borrow or buy a decibel reader to see how loud the kids can scream. Weigh the students to see how many it would take to weigh as much as a blue whale. Using their weight, how much would they have to eat every day to keep up with a shrew? Maybe you could borrow some large bags of potatoes or industrial-sized cans of food from your cafeteria to show them how much they would need to eat each day.
