May 15th

May 15
On May 15 at 1:30 pm we spent a beautiful day indoors listening to a guest speaker for 2 hours. It was, in my opinion, a waste of daylight. But I digress…
The guest speaker, (a man whose name I failed to catch, let’s call him Bob) was a curator. A curator takes care of museum artifacts. They don’t just take care of these artifacts; they are in charge of everyone else who takes care of the artifacts. They also do research and review the artifacts. So we can assume that Bob is pretty knowledgeable. Here are some fun facts…
Mammals have only been around the last 60 million years.
There are 29 orders and 153 families of mammal.
Characteristics such as hair, milk, single lower jawbone, and their three middle-ear bones define mammals.
Only 1/3 of marsupials are in the Americas, the rest are in Australia.
North America contains 3% of all mammals on the earth, and 9 of their orders.
~100 mammals are extinct due to human intervention.
Kangaroo rats (see journal entry May 15 for art) have huge heads (because they have a large ear apparatus) and they hop like kangaroos.
WA has 146 species of mammal (9 are introduced) therefore we have 137 native species. 32 of which are marine animals and 15 of which are flying mammals. We have 90 species of native land mammals. 28 of which are large (carnivores, ariodactyles, humans) and 62 of which are small (rodents, soricomorphs, regomorphs)
We saw pictures and slides of every order and many species of mammal, too many to remember let alone write down. I will list the names of those that I could catch
Dasyuromorphia = carnivores
Nortory – mole (2 species)
Microbiotheria – 15 species in family
Afrosor
Macroscelidea
Tubulidentata- 1 species in family
Hyracoidea
Sirenia- manatees
Cingulata
Pilosa – sloths & anteaters 4 families, 10 species
Scandentia
Dermoptera
Primates – 15 family, 176 species
Rodentia – rodents
Lagomorphe – 92 species
Erinaceomorphia
Chiroptera – 1116 species
Cetacea – whales
Arriodactyla – hoof 10 families, 240 species
Perissodactyla – horses, rhinos, tapers
-vanishing order
Pholidota – scaly anteaters
Carnivora – 45 families, 206 species
*Diet variety is independent of phylogenetic diversity

Posted on June 5, 2012 06:56 AM by mhf5