noun
definition
An animal of the class Mammalia, characterized by being warm-blooded, having hair and feeding milk to its young.
definition
A vertebrate with three bones in the inner ear and one in the jaw.
Examples of mammals in a Sentence
The sea mammals include the common dolphin (Delphinus delphis).
Of smaller mammals, raccoons, squirrels and opossums are very common.
Only two land mammals are known to be indigenous.
If we get into mammals, the biggest killer of humans is dogs – and horses.
Bogdanov, Birds and Mammals of the Black-Earth Region of the Volga Basin (in Russian, Kazan, 1871); Karelin for the southern Urals; Kessler for fishes; Strauch, Die Schlangen des Russ.
It may be added that a few traces of mammals have been obtained from the English Wealden, among which an incisor tooth foreshadows the rodent type.
Marsupials may be defined as viviparous (that is non-egglaying) mammals, in which the young are born in an imperfect condition, and almost immediately attached to the teats of the mammary glands; the latter being generally enclosed in a pouch, and the front edge of the pelvis being always furnished with epipubic or "marsupial" bones.
From the number of its cheek-teeth, the banded ant-eater has been regarded as related to some of the primitive Jurassic mammals; but this view is disputed by Mr Bensley, who regards this multiplicity of teeth as a degenerate feature.
Sclater have been found to hold good for a large number of groups of animals as different in their mode of life as birds and mammals, and they may thus be accepted as based on nature.
E Here, as over so large a portion of the Australian region, we find birds constituting the supreme class - the scarcity of mammals being accounted for in some measure as a normal effect of insularity.
The Lebanon and the hills of north Galilee offer the greatest number of mammals.
According to Nordenskjold r it numbers only twenty-nine species of mammals, of which seven are marine and seventeen or eighteen may be safely considered as living beyond the forest limit.
The Life of Mammals describes and illustrates the remarkable diversity of mammals from the giant blue whale to the miniscule pigmy shrew.
Some dinosaurs ate lizards, turtles, eggs, or early mammals.
The marsupials constitute two-thirds of all the Australian species of mammals.
Among the mammals are the opossum, raccoon, star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata), grey fox and fox squirrel.
Our campaign has always focussed on ending wanton cruelty to Britain's wild mammals - perpetrated in the name of sport.
With few exceptions, the terminal extremities of the digits of both limbs of mammals are more or less protected or armed by epidermic plates or sheaths, constituting the various forms of nails, claws or hoofs.
Of the liver little need be said, except that in all living mammals it has been divided into a number of distinct lobes, which have received separate names.
Besides the dog and the pig, which (with the domestic fowl) must have been introduced in early times, the only land mammals are certain species of rats and bats.
In all there are 90 different species of mammals, 248 species of birds, 377 of fishes and more than 13,000 of insects.
There appear to have been no indigenous mammals or reptiles.
The faunal aspect of the Tertiary periods differs strikingly from that of preceding Secondary or Mesozoic; in place of the great saurian reptiles we find the rapid development and finally the maximum expansion of mammals.
Among the mammals that fall under this head are the common genet (Genetta vulgaris), which extends, however, pretty far north, and is found also in the south of France, the fallowdeer, the porcupine (very rare), and a species of ichneumon (Herpestes Widdr-ingtonii), which is confined to the Peninsula, and is the only European species of this African genus.
Of the mammals in which Spain shows more affinity to the fauna of central and northern Europe, some of the most characteristic are the Spanish lynx (Lynx pardinus), a species confined to the Peninsula, the Spanish hare (Lepus madritenss), and the species mentioned in the article PYRENEES.
Ibex live habitually at a greater height than chamois or any other Alpine mammals, their vertical limit being the line of perpetual snow.
The latter sends a horizontal or slightly ascending process backwards below the orbit to join the under surface of the zygomatic process of the squamosal, which is remarkably large, and instead of ending as usual behind the orbit, runs forwards to join the greatly developed post-orbital process of the frontal, and even forms part of the posterior and inferior boundary of the orbit, an arrangement not met with in other mammals.
The hoof of the horse corresponds to the nail or claw of other mammals, but is so constructed as to form a complete and solid case to the expanded termination of the toe, giving a firm basis of support formed of a non-sensitive substance, which is continually renewed by the addition of material from within, as its surface wears away by friction.
Before the advent of the white man Nebraska was full of wild mammals, the buffalo, elk, black and white tailed deer, antelope, bears, timber wolves, panthers (pumas), lynx, otter and mink being common.
Little is known of the habits of the clouded leopard, but it preys on small mammals and birds, and rarely comes to the ground.
That it was not much earlier is shown by the fact that some still living species of mammals, such as the thylacine, existed before"the separation.
The discovery of great Pampean mammals in the Pleistocene beds of that region shows that this upheaval of the latter is very recent, for in the heart of the Cordillera, as well as on the west coast of Bolivia and Peru, there have been discovered, in very recent deposits, the remains of some mammals which cannot have crossed the high range as it now exists.
This flora, however, is associated with a fauna of large mammals, the majority of which are extinct.
This lignite and the accompanying leaf-bearing clays underlie and are apparently older than the strata with Newer Pliocene mammals and mollusca.
However extraordinary it may appear, especially to those who bring the living forms only into focus, that opposition should still be made to Huxley's primary division of the vertebrates other than mammals into Sauropsida (birds and reptiles) and Ichthyopsida (batrachians and fishes), it is certain that recent discoveries in palaeontology have reduced the gap between batrachians and reptiles to such a minimum as to cause the greatest embarrassment in the attempt to draw a satisfactory line of separation between the two; on the other hand the hiatus between fishes and batrachians remains as wide as it was at the time Huxley's article Amphibia (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed.) was written.
The outcome of our present knowledge points to the Stegocephalia, probably themselves derived from the Crossopterygian fishes (8), having yielded on the one hand the true batrachians (retrogressive series), with which they are to a certain extent connected through the Caudata and the Apoda, on the other hand the reptiles (progressive series), through the Rhynchocephalians and the Anomodonts, the latter being believed, on very suggestive evidence, to lead to the mammals (9).
The land fauna however is very poor; there are few mammals with the exception of dogs, rats and pigs; and amphibia and insects are also generally scarce.
Mammals are few in species, but remarkable, especially Macacus niger, an ape found nowhere else but in Bachian; Anoa depressicornis, a small ox-like quadruped which inhabits the mountainous districts; and the babirusa or pig-deer of the Malays.
Some of the animals are probably descendants of specimens introduced by man; others are allied in species, but not identical, with mammals of Java and Borneo; others again, including the three just mentioned, are wholly or practically confined to Celebes.
The same peculiarity of species holds in regard to the insects of the Celebes (so far as they are known) as to the mammals and birds.
If we get into mammals, the biggest killer of humans is dogs – and horses.
There is a diversity of flora and fauna - 600 species of plants, 37 species of mammals and 190 different birds.
The second class contains enzymes from Myxococcus xanthus, methanogenic archaea, insects, fish and marsupial mammals.
The Act governs hunting wild mammals with dogs in England and Wales, and bans all hare coursing.
Bat droppings are similar to small mammals but on closer inspection are very crumbly due to the insect contents.
He was a pioneer in the use of the natural history diorama to exhibit large mammals against a representation of their habitat.
No large mammals ever reached the islands, so birds and reptiles remained dominant - as they had once dominated the Earth eons before.
Insects, spiders and crustaceans have them, while mammals, birds and fish have endoskeletons.
Mammals dominated the land fauna following the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous.
Typical mountain steppe mammals include Altai pika Ochotona alpina, arctic ground squirrel Citellus undulatus and Siberian chipmunk Tamias sibiricus.