Class Mammalia - Teacher's Guide

Note: Mammal orders and classification change, and some books may have different answers depending on how current the book are. How detailed the answers and descriptions are depends on you.

There are two possible ways to have your students complete the chart - they can do it as an individual or group project where they use their books and other resources to find the answers, or they treat this chart as notes and you can talk about each group, who pictures and discuss as they fill in the table. I use the Mammal Powerpoint Presentation with this chart because there are some fantasic images of animals and short video clips that the students enjoy. This method does take some time though, plan for at least two days and perhaps more because students will ask a lot of questions and share stories about their own animal encounters. Mammals are just a popular topic!

Animal	Order	Description (special traits)	Members
	Monotremata	the only mammal that lays eggs, platypus are also the only mammals that are venomous	echidna (spiny anteater)
	Artiodactyla	hoofed mammals with an ODD number of toes	sheep, pigs, bison, deer
	Rodentia	gnawing mammals, incisors continue to grow throughout their lives	squirrels, rats, hamsters, ferrets
	Lagomorpha	double row of incisors, hind legs adapted for hopping *trivia: pikachu (pokemon) is modeled after a pika	hares, pika
	Carnivora	large canines, generally meat-eaters, the panda bear is an exception. Most carnivores are actually omnivores (bears, dogs, etc)	raccoon, dog/wolf, tiger, lion, fox, bears, badgers
	Primate	opposable thumbs, large brains, have social groups, use tools	chimpanzee, human, gorilla, organgutan
	Cetacea	aquatic mammals, blowhole, echolocation	dolphins, porpoises, whales
	Proboscidea	have trunks, tusks, only found in Africa and Asia - two different species with slight differences in appearance (ear shape)	Asian Elephant African Elephant

Animal	Order	Description (special traits)	Members
	Marsupiala	Young are born in an immature state and complete development in a pouch. Australia is home to all marsupials except the opossum	Kangaroo, koala, wallaby, tasmanian devil
	Perissodactyla	Hoofed mammals with an even number of toes. The rhino is an endangered species, was hunted for its horn, which is actually tightly wound hair.	Horses, zebras
	Xenarthra (also edentata in some txts) also found as Order CINGULATA with xenarthra being a superorder See: Armadillo	reduced or absent enamel on teeth, some have hardly no teeth at all (sloth)	sloth, anteater
	Chiroptera	only flying mammals, the wings are actually skin stretched between their phalanges (fingers); also have echolocation for night hunting, some are important for flower fertilization (fruit bats)	vampire bat, fruit bat, etc.
	Insectivora	Insect eating, digging mammals, teeth structure differs from rodents	shrew
	Sirenia	Aquatic mammals, they do not have blowholes and are found near shorelines eating vegetation *the name Sirenia comes from sailors who thought the animals were the sirens from greek mythology* manatees are endangered because they are often hit by boats and they have very little fear of humans	manatees in N. Ameria dugongs in Japan
These photos were in the ppt presentation, if students were paying attention, they might remember their names: Sloth, Bandicoot, Tapir