5/15 - Mammals

Jim Kenagy came and talked to us today about mammals. Although not nearly as numerous as insects, mammals remain highly diverse and adaptable which has no doubt contributed to their dominance over many other species. There are around 5400 mammal species, spanning 29 orders. They are classified by the following traits: the growing of hair, producing of milk, single lower jaw bones, and three middle-ear bones. These are broad categorizations, a sign of the diversity and allowing for a huge variety of unique traits. Mammals can be found flying in the air, hopping, running, and even swimming and spending most of their life in water. As Jim showed us all of the different mammals, I couldn't help but think how amazing and sometimes humorous mammals look. The range of terrain on Earth has a huge effect in shaping this, with mammals taking advantage and becoming specialists to their respective homes. The anteater, with its huge snout and lack of teeth looks outrageous, but is unrivaled in its ability to get down into ant hills and termite nests with its long tongue to extract them. It is crazy to think this same animal is in some sense related to things like whales and even household dogs.

Washington has 9 out of the 29 orders of mammals, due to the great variety in ecosystems found throughout the state. These 9 orders are made up of 146, 137 which are native. 90 of these are found on land, with 28 considered large mammals, and the remaining 62 considered small mammals. It is hard to find this variety on campus, on which the mammals are largely comprised of squirrels, raccoons, and small animals. Like everything else to do with the environment, humans have had a strong impact on mammals. During the past 50 years, humans have caused nearly 200 mammals to go extinct. I wonder how this will affect the balance of nature in the long run? 200 mammals in the short span of 50 years quite a large number of species and I can only imagine this will continue to increase with the way we are treating the Earth.

Posted on June 2, 2012 11:44 PM by beardendb