Amazing Animal Facts

Anita Ganery

Illustrated by Andrews Laws

LESSON NO. 1
What Makes a Mammal
Mammals

are

beings,

dogs

a special group of animals,

which

includes

and cats and many other furry animals.

human

There

over 4,000 different types of mammals. They come in a huge

are

of sizes and shapes, from the tiny bumblebee bat to the

range

gigantic

blue whale which is 100 million times heavier.

Mammals live all over the world, from the freezing Arctic to
baking
fresh

hot deserts. Most of them live on land but some

water and in the sea. Rodents, the family

rats

and

species,

mice,

are the largest group of

which

mammals,

the

live

in

includes

with

1,750

or different types. At the other end of the scale,

the

aardvark is the only member of its group.

Breathing air
All

mammals have lungs and need to breathe to stay alive.

Their

very distant ancestors were fish which breathed under water

gills.

A tube running from a mammal's ear or its throat is

with
all

that remains of these prehistoric gill.

Hairy hides
Hair is made up of dead strands of kertin, a substance which also
makes

horns and nails. Mammals are the only animals

which

true hair. Some have thick, hairy coats. Others, such as

have

whales,

have just a few hairs on their lips.

Mammal facts
The

first mammals lived about 200 million years ago.

small

They

and a little hike mice. They probably hunted at

were

night

to

avoid the hungry dinosaurs.

About

90% of a mammal's energy is used to keep its body at

just

the right temperature.

Some

mammals sweat to cool down. Cats and dogs have sweat

glads

only on the pads of their feet. Whales have no sweat glands.

House

mice are one of the commonest mammals. They have

followed

people all over the world, except to Antarctica.

Did you know?
With

only 4,000 species, mammals from a small group compared

to

other

animals. there are about 10 million species of animals

in

the

world. The largest group is insects with at least a

million

different species and perhaps as many as 10 million.

No

other

animals

have earflaps, apart

from

mammals.

African

elephants have the biggest earflaps of all. They measure about

ft

(1.8 m) across. Elephants flap their ears to keep

themselves

cool and perhaps to call their young.

Baby care
Mammals are the only animals that feed their babies on milk. They
also

look after their young until they can fend for

Some

mammals

visit

their

are better parents than others. Tree

themselves.

new-born

babies

every two

days

or

shrews
so.

only

African

elephants care for their young until they are teenagers.

Year round Warmth
Mammals

can

live

all over the world

because

they

are

warm-

blooded. The temperature inside their bodies stays at about 97

102

degree

F (36 - 39 degree C) no matter how hot or

cold

the

weather is. They need to eat regular meals to keep it just right.
Bones in the back
Mammals

are called vertebrates. This means they have

backbones.

Most mammals, including those as different as giraffes and voles,

have

seven bones in their necks. Each of a giraffe's neck

bones

is about as long as this page.

...................
LESSON NO. 2
A Place to live
Many mammals have a fixed home when they have their babies.
may

be

hidden

nest or an underground burrow where

the

from predators and safe from the weather.

This

babies

Other

are

parents

simply wander about with their young in search of food.

Some
or

mammals live in territories. These are large areas of

and

a group of trees which the animals defend

against

land

intruders

enemies. A few mammals build real homes which they use

over

and over again, and which may last for hundreds of years.
Beaver Builders
Beavers

are wonderful home builders. First they build a dam

of

logs, rocks and mud across a stream or small river. Then, in

the

pond

which

forms

behind the dam, they put up a

huge

dome

of

branches and logs, called a lodge.

Animal Homes
Foxes make their homes where they can find food. Some have

moved

from

drain

the

woods to towns and cities. They find

homes

pipes, under garden sheds or in people's flower beds.

in

Mole

hills are made of the solid which a mole pushes up

to

the

surface as it digs its burrow.

Giraffes have no fixed home so they have to keep a close look out
for

predators.

They sleep deeply for only about

20

minutes

night, in short snatches of five minutes.

Timber Cutters
Breavers

them

15 minutes to saw through a tree 20 in (50 cm) thick.

Some

just

cut up logs with their long sharp teeth. It takes

breaver
built

dams contain hundreds of tons of wood. The

largest

was

on the Jefferson River in Montana. It is strong enough

to

ride a horse over.

Bed for the night
The biggest mammal nests are built high up in the trees by organutans.

At

night they make mattresses out of bent

branches

and

twigs, in the fork of a tree, then cover themselves up with

leaf

blankets.

used

The nest takes about five minutes to make and is

for only one night.

The Lodge
The

beaver

lodge has a dry main room which is above

the

water

into

short

level. Entrances under the water keep out enemies.

After

cutting

lengthens.

down

tree,

beaver

chews

it

Then it drags the logs along a trail over the

ground

or along a canal it has dug from the forest to the stream. A pair
of

breavers

work together to build a lodge with

two

or

three

rooms and an underwater food store.

The

babies,

called kits, are born in the lodge in

the

They

are soon able to swim, kicking out with their

feet

and using their flat tails like a rudder to steer.

Spring.

webbed

back

Beavers

can stay under the water for about 15 minutes before coming up to
breathe.
Aardvark at home
Aardvark wander about at night in search of food. During the day,
they shelter from the heat in freshly dug burrows which are up to
16ft

(5m) long. Aardvarks do not need to run away

They

can

from

dig so quickly, they can cover themselves

danger.

with

earth

before they are attacked.

Did you know?
Mole-rats dig long underground tunnels with their huge teeth. The
tunnels

may

be over 1,150 ft (350m) long - 3,500

times

longer

than the mole-rat itself. A mole-rat can move as much as 25 times

its own weight of earth in just ten minutes.
Badgers
line

always keep their underground sets clean and tidy.

their

bedrooms with moss and bracken. On dry,

They

sunny

days

they pull the bedding outside to air it.

Many

bats

escape the winter cold by hibernating

in

holes

and

caves. A more unusual roost was found by 1,000 little brown bats.
They spent their winters 0.6 miles (1 km) down in a zinc mine

in

the USA.
Harvest home
Many

small mammals live in burrows or in holes in

tree

trunks.

Harvest mice build nests on stems of grass. They split the top of
the

stem

soft

and weave it into a frame. Then they pad it

out

grass and feathers. The round nests are the size of

balls.
...................

with
tennis

LESSON NO. 3
Animal babies
Animal
grow

babies come in all shapes and sizes. Most

inside

Others

are

their

mother's body until they

mammal

babies

well

formed.

are

blind and quite helpless when they

are

born.

Some

babies even hatch out of eggs.

All

mammal

mothers look after their babies until they

enough

to find food for themselves and live on their

parents

care for their young for several years but

are

old

own.
some

Some
babies

grow up and leave home in just a few days.

Good parents
Gorillas look after their babies until they are about three years
old.

The parents will protect their young with their

poachers

try

to capture a baby, they have to kill

lives.
the

If

parents

first.
Biggest baby
Baby

blue whales weigh nearly 3 tons and are up to 28ft

half

m)

long when they are born. They drink so

much

(8
of

and
their

mother's milk that they grow to twice this size in one week.
Batty babies
Each

year,

10

million free tailed bats have

Bracken Cave, Texas. The

their

babies

10 million babies cling to the walls of

the cave while their mothers go out hunting. They are so

packed

together

in

that over 1,000 would fit on these

tightly

two

pages.

When the mothers return, each one always finds her own baby.
Facts of life.
An

Asian elephant lives for up to 75 years. This is longer

any other mammal, except for human beings.

than

Shrews

they

for just 12 -18 months. They are born, they breed and

then

live

have the shortest lives of any mammal. In the wild,

they die.
Rabbits

breed

very quickly. In three years, a pair

could

have

over 13,700 descendants.

If

baby

elephant's mother dies, the baby is

adopted

by

an

"aunt", who is one of the other females in the herd.

Mouse opossums probably have the smallest babies of any

mammals.

They are only about as big as grains of rice.

Mammals with pouches
Virginia

opossums may have as many as 56 babies in a litter

but

they usually have 10-18. After about 10 weeks, the babies

become

too big to fit in their mother's pouch. They crawl out and

cling

to her stomach, her back and on to her tail.

At birth, a baby kangaroo is blind, helpless and only the size of
a bee. It crawls into its mother's pouch where it drinks milk and
grows.
When
jumps

it is bigger, it pops its head out to look around and

out.

It leaves the pouch at about seven

months.

even

Mammals

with pouches are called marsupials.

Did you know?
A

nine-banded armadillo usually has a litter of

four

identical

babies, or quads. The quads are always of the same sex.

A duck-billed platypus is a mammal that lays eggs. The white eggs
have soft, sticky shells and are laid in a nest in a river bank.
...................
LESSON NO. 4

Finding food
Animals

spend a lot of time looking for food. They need

regular

meals to give them plenty of energy and many of them have

clever

way of finding enough to eat. Many mammals also have to be on the

look-out for other hungry animals which might eat them.
Rhinoceroses
plants.

look

fierce

but they only

eat

grass

Animals that live on grass and other plants

and

herbivores.

Animals

that eat only meat are

called

are

leafy
called

carnivores.

Animals that eat both meat and plants are called omnivores.
Giraffe grub
Giraffes'
up

necks are up to 6.5ft (2 m) long. They can reach

high

to the tops of acacia trees to eat the leaves. Elephants

the

only

animals tall enough to reach

the

giraffe's

are

favorite

food.
Food facts
A

jaguar is a good fisherman. To catch fish, it lies still on

rock

or branch overhanging the water and flips fish on the

bank

with its paw.

African elephants spend 20 hours a day feeding, eating 330 lb(150
Kg)

of plants and drinking 20 gallons

day.

Numbats

have

52

( 90 liters) of

teeth but they

never

use

water

them.

Like

anteaters, numbats swallow ants and termites whole.

Fat-tailed sheep store fat in their tails. They use it to live on
when

there is no food . Sometimes their tails get so heavy

that

the sheep cannot walk properly.

Fussy feeder
Koalas

are

very fussy

about their food.

They

eat

leaves

but only from 20 types of trees and out of 350

eucalyptus
types

of

eucalyptus,

choosing

the

young

shoots.

Koalas

eat

so

many

eucalyptus leaves that they even smell of eucalyptus.

Team work
Lionesses
stalk

hunt together in teams. They spread out in a line

the

after animals, such as wildebeest. The lioness

wildebeest

lionesses

looks towards them. As they

freeze

creep

at the ends of the line drive the

and
if

closer,

wildebeest

the

towards

the center for the other to attack.

Tools for termites
Chimpanzees
chimp

have

a clever way of making a meal of

into

nest. Termite guards attack the twig, hanging on to it

with

their

jaw.

The

chimp

then pulls

the

by pokes a

twig

the

breaks off a twig and settles down

termites.

twig

out,

covered

in

termites, and gobbles them up.

Did you know?
A tiny Etruscan shrew only weighs as much as a ping-pong ball but
it can eat plenty of food. Each day it eats about three times its
own

weight.

It

would die if it went for more

than

two

hours

without food.
Wooly
They

monkeys eat poisonous leave high up in the

jungle

eat a few leaves from one tree and then move on to

trees.
another

type of tree with a different poison. This means that the monkeys
never eat enough of one poison. This means that the monkeys never
eat enough of one poison of it to kill them.
Vampire
their

bats in South America attack cattle at night

and

blood. They drink about two teaspoonfuls of blood

drink

Sometimes, they gorge themselves so much that they are too

to fly away.

day.
heavy

tigress in Nepal holds the record for eating the most

people.

She was shot in 1911 after eating a grand total of 438 people

in

eight years. Tigers may eat people because they like the taste of
human flesh.
Moving about
All

mammals move about to find

In

their

food and to escape from

search for food some animals make very

danger.

long

journeys

once a year. These are called migrations.

Animals

move in all sorts of ways. They can run, jump, swim

even fly. Many have special features to help

and

them get about more

easily or more quickly.

Jungle swingers
With

arms twice as long as their bodies, gibbons

are

wonderful

acrobats. They swing through the forest tree tops at speeds of 10

mph (16km/h) They have no tails but grasp the branches with their
long fingers.
Some monkeys use their tails as an extra arm. Spider monkeys
hang

from branches by their tails alone. This leaves both

can
hands

free for feeding.

Getting about
Mountains

goats

are very sure footed. Their

hooves

work

like

suction pads, sticking firmly to steep rocks as they climb.

A

pronghorn antelope is the fastest mammal over long

distances.

It can keep up a speed of 31 mph (50km/h) for nearly 15 minutes.

Caribou

travel up to 1,400 miles (2,250) when they migrate

year to find food. They march in huge herds of as many as

animals.
Flying and Gliding

each
20,000

Bats

are the only mammals that can fly. Their wings are made

leathery

skin stretched across their long fingers.

The

of

biggest

bat is a Bismark flying box.

Flying

squirrels cannot really fly but they can glide as far

as

1,480 ft (450 m) through the tress. Their wings are flaps of skin
joining their back and front legs.
Champion Sprinter
Cheetahs

can

distances.
run

sprint

faster than any other

mammal

over

With a top speed of over 63 mph (100 km/h)

short

nearly three times quicker than the fastest human

they

can

sprinter.

Cheetahs have bendy backbones so that they can take huge

strides

as they run. But they soon get tired and stop for a rest.
Pronking Springbok
A

frightened springbok jumps straight up into the air. With

its

back arched and feet together, it can leap 10 ft (3m) as a danger

signal.

This is called 'pronking'. It may also

confuse

enemies

and give the springbok time to escape.

Slowly Does It.
Sloths

are

the slowest and sleepiest of all

land

mammals.

sloth in a hurry can reach a top speed of 1.3 mph (2 km/h)! At

normal

pace, it would take a sloth one minute to crawl just

ft (2 m). Sloths sleep for at least 18 hours a day, hanging

a
6.5

from

the branch of a tree.

Colour and Camouflage
All

mammals have some hair on their bodies . It helps

to

keep

them warm and protects them from being injured. Hair is also used
to send signals of welcome and warning.
Some

animals have coats which blend in with their

surroundings.

This is called camouflage. Camouflage helps animals to hide

from

hungry enemies and to stalk their prey.

A maze of stripes
When
and

zebras move in a group their stripes seem to blur

make

the animals difficult to see. This makes it

together
hard

lions and other hunters when they try to single out one zebra

for
to

attack.
Mandrill Make-up
Many monkeys use color to recognize each other and frighten
enemies.
attract

A
a

male mandrill's bright red and blue face

mate

and warn off rivals. A

colourful of all animals.

...................

mandrill

is

away

helps

him

the

most