Mammals Honor
This honor is taught during four 45-minute classes on the Sabbath meetings in the fall session. This is a Friend Class
Class 1
#2.
List four characteristics of a mammal
1. Mammals have mammary, or milk glands for feeding their young
2. Most mammals bear live offspring. There are two exceptions – the echidna and the
platypus.
3. Mist mammals are covered with hair of some kind or another.
4. All mammals never have fewer than four limbs, and always have two front limbs.
5. All mammals are warm-blooded, and the heart is four-chambered.
6. All mammals breathe air.
7. All mammals have an instinct to care for their young
#1.
#9.
Know on what day of creation mammals were created
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Light
Air
Vegetation
Sun, Moon & Stars
Birds & Fish
Mammals, including Man
Day of rest
Write or tell a story about “Wild Animals I have observed”.
Introduce this here. This story can be done as you have time.. If you have a large class
you may need to take the written option.
(Note: Start out by asking the group, “How many of you have been out in the
woods and have seen a wild mammal?” Then get them to tell you about when
they saw the mammal and what happened. They will not realize you are getting
them to complete one of the requirements). If the report is written it must be one
page long.
#8.
List eight species of wild mammals that you personally have observed
and identified in the wild.
Help them start their list and work on it as necessary during the remaining class
periods.
Class 2
#3.
Give one or more identifying characteristics of each of the following
orders of mammals, and name one or more species of mammals
found in each order. (Have pictures of each animal to show Pathfinders).
1.
2.
3.
4.
Monotremata
1. Lays Eggs
Examples: Echidnas, Platypus
Proboscidea
1. Have Trunks
2. Have Tusks
Examples: African Elephant, Asian Elephant
Chiroptera
1. flying Mammals
Examples: Bats
Insectivora
1. Pointed Snout
2. Crushing Teeth
Examples: Shrew, Hedgehog
5.
6.
7.
8.
Edentata
1. No Teeth
2. Digging Limbs
Examples: Armadillo, Sloth
Marsupialia
1. Have Pouches
Examples: Kangaroo, Opossum
Carnivora
1. Meat Eaters
2. Large Teeth
Examples: Bears, Cats, Raccoons, Dogs
Cetacea
1. Blow hole
2. No Hind Limbs
Examples: Whales, Dolphins
#7.
Name the largest mammal in the world and tell where it lives, how it
feeds and what it eats.
The largest animals that have ever lived, the blue whales can grow to 100 feet long and
weigh as much as 135 tons, the equivalent of 30 elephants or 1,600 men. The average
adult blue whale is 85 feet long weighing just over 100 tons. Only an aquatic animal could
achieve such a vast size where the water can support the body. These whales breath
through lungs, have some hair, bear live young, and suckle their offspring. Blue whales
belong to the group of baleen whales or Mysticeti. Instead of teeth, they have 2 sets of
whalebone plates or baleen, made from modified hair, hanging from the roof of the mouth
and looking like a sort of internal moustache. This is why they are called Mysticeti,
derived from the Greek mystax meaning moustache. The blue whale is also known as the
sulphur-bottom whale, a name that refers to a yellowish film of microscopic plants, called
diatoms, which is sometimes found the underside of blue whales. Normally they are
slateblue except on the tips of the flippers. During the summer, blue whales live in the
Antarctic and Arctic seas, mainly in areas of floating ice. There is a vast harvest of small
marine animals, but these tend to occur in patches. Whale dives usually last for seven or
eight minutes, but blue whales can stay down longer. Their normal speed is eight to 10
knots with speeds of up to 18 during sprints. The rows of whalebone plates in the mouths
of baleen whales act as sieves, straining off their food of small marine animals. The bulk
of the whales’ food is a two-inch shrimp-like animal called krill. To collect krill, a whale
opens its mouth and sucks in water. The folds under the jaw and throat of baleen whales
allow the floor of the mouth to drop down so a large volume of water can enter. The
mouth is then shut and the tongue raised, forcing water out through the baleen plates.
Each plate is triangular, broad at the top and tapering to a point at the bottom. They are
set ½ inch apart, and the inside edge is frayed so that the tough hairs from which baleen
is made up form a dense mat on which the krill is caught to be pushed to the back of the
mouth by the tongue and swallowed. The krill exist in the greatest concentrations at the
surface of the ocean, usually within the top 30 feet so the blue whales do not have to dive
very deep very often. To supply energy to their huge bodies, blue whales must be avid
eaters. When cut open in the whaling factories their stomachs are regularly found to be
crammed full of krill. One 80-foot whale had two tons of krill in its stomach. Sometimes a
larger animal, such as a penguin, is found in a whale’s stomach, having been engulfed
while it was feeding on krill. How the whales find krill in sufficient quantities is quite a
mystery. It is known that have an echolocation system similar to the asdic or sonar used
for submarines. Even with our advanced electronics, however, no system has been built
sensitive enough to detect krill.
Class 3
#3.
Give one or more identifying characteristics of each of the following
orders of mammals, and name one or more species of mammals
found in each order.
9.
Lagomorpha
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
1. Have two pair of upper incisors
Examples: Hares, Rabbits
Pinnipedia
1. Have 4 Flippers
2. Meat Eating
Examples: Seals, Sea Lions, Walrus
Rodentia
1. Gnawers
2. Chisel Incisors
Examples: Beavers, Mice, Squirrels, Rats, Porcupines
Sirenia
1. Ho Hind Limbs
2. Front Flippers
Examples: Manatee
Perissodactyla
1. Hoofed Mammals
2. Odd Number Toes
Examples: Horses, Rhinoceros
Artiodavtlya
1. Hoofed mammals
2. Even Number toes
Examples: Sheep, Goats, Cows, Deer, Pigs
Primates
1. Complex Brain,
2. Hand With Thumb
Suborders
Prosimii
Anthropoidea
1. Lack Intelligent Expression
Examples: Lemur, Tree-shrew
#6.
1. Flattened Faces
2. Most Intelligent
Examples: Monkeys, Apes, Humans
List four mammals that are completely aquatic and designate their
natural range.
The sirenians, which include the manatee and dungong, live entirely in the water.
Their range is in rivers, nays, and coastal areas from the southeastern United States to
central South America, including the Caribbean Sea, and western tropical Africa.
The cetaceans, which include the porpoise, dolphin, and whales, live in all oceans
of the world with some coming into freshwater rivers
Class 4
4.
List four beneficial mammals and tell how they are beneficial.
Beneficial Mammals
1.
Domestic Mammals
A. Transportation
B. Food
C. Clothing
D. Protection
2. Wild Animals
A. Pest Control
B. Balance of Nature
It is interesting to note that any mammal may be of great value in one locality, but
very destructive in another environment. We are all aware of the importance of domestic
mammals, the cattle, sheep, goats, and horses that provide us with so many products for
daily use.
Shrews and moles, as well as ant-eaters, and a few other mammals feed upon
many insects, thus ridding the country of harmful creatures, which may destroy our crops.
Bats area probably the most important as insect destroyers, for they feed upon millions of
tons of harmful insects every year.
Predatory mammals feed on field mice and thus refrain from destroying more
desirable game animals. These predatory mammals may also be furbearers. Some
mammals are beneficial in an in direct way to man. The snowshoe rabbit provides a
buffer species by providing larger predatory mammals with food when they might, with
out the presence of the rabbits, go after game that is desired more by man. Pocket
gophers are considered pests in gardens, but are important soil-forming agents and a
real help to plant life.
Dogs serve as guides, protectors, and friends. Horses help man work and give
him pleasure. Cattle provide food for man. Cats help kill harmful mammals around farms
as well as make good pets. Whales provide food, clothing, and other useful products.
5.
List four things mammals do that are harmful.
Harmful Mammals
1. Agriculture loss
2. Tunneling
3. Diseases
4. Kill livestock
Native mammals to the United States cause annual loss to agriculture and forestry,
which adds up to millions of dollars. The most guilt are the pocket gophers, ground
squirrels, field mice, cottontails, jack rabbits, prairie dogs, cotton rats, porcupine,
woodchuck, and moles.
The majority of mammals cause no harm to man. Nearly all the rodents (the most
abundant of all mammals) are harmful. Mice and rats destroy countless tons of grain and
other food products. Ground squirrels (often called gophers) destroy much of the green
crops of our fields. Pocket gophers, moles, and some wild mice and rats gig serious
tunnels in out gardens, and eat many of our plants. Small carnivores such as weasels,
skunks, and mink may kill chickens, although rats kill more chicken than all other wild
animals combined. Mammals such as wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, and bears
cause livestock and poultry losses.
The most serious harm of all is the fact that man of the wild mammals carry
diseases to man and to domestic animals. Many kinds of rabbit, ground squirrels, mice,
and rats carry such diseases as bubonic plague, tularemia, and spotted fever. Rats are
the most serious menace of all as far a carrying disease is concerned, for the harbor the
fleas, which actually carry bubonic plague. Ground squirrel and rabbits frequently carry
tularemia, and deer and other big game animals may carry spotted fever.