All About Mammals
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Mammals are one of the 6 main classes of animals. Animal classes are groups of animals that scientists consider to be alike in some important ways. Mammals are the animal class that people belong to.
There are only about 4,000 kinds of mammals. This sounds like a lot, but when you consider there are 21,000 kinds of fish and a whopping 800,000 kinds of insects you’ll realize mammals are a pretty small class!
Here are some of the ways that mammals are alike!
Mammals are warm blooded.
The temperature could be freezing cold
or boiling hot,
but mammals’ bodies are built to maintain just about the same temperature all the time. Warm blood lets the mammals be very active and live in a wide variety of places.
Mammals are everywhere. Polar bears live in very cold areas. Camels live in hot areas. Moles live under the ground. Bats live in caves and fly in the air. Dolphins live in the oceans. Fur and fat help protect mammals who live in the cold. Mammals sweat or pant to release extra heat if they live somewhere toasty.