Facts about mammals animals: Mammal Pictures & Facts

Posted on 15 октября, 2023 by alexxlab

The Largest, Smallest & Smelliest In The World

June 18, 2023December 29, 2019 by Gordon Ramel

Look around you sometime…

Chances are – if you see an animal – it’s a mammal. Mammals are the dominant life form on this planet at the moment, at least from a human perspective.

There are about 6,399 species of mammals known on this planet at the moment. Though taxonomists are still arguing and species are still being found.

Mammals are in fact not the most speciose animal group on the planet.

Three other groups of vertebrates out-number them right now:

Reptiles have 11,050 species,
Birds have 10,988 species and
Fishes approximately 34,300 species.

Invertebrates – of course – have groups with huge numbers of species that outnumber all the vertebrates put together: Arachnids, with a 100,000 species and insects with 1,000,000. While even Molluscs with a mere 85,000, still outnumber any 3 groups of vertebrates put together.

Mammals however are big. You can see them easily – and perhaps most importantly you are one.

Mammals are there, everywhere you look. Large, warm-blooded, four-limbed vertebrates whose females produce milk (see What is a Mammal).

Elephant showing its big ears on Masai Mara savannah Kenya

Elephants and Whales, Pigs, Horses, Cattle, Sheep, Dogs, Cats, Hamsters, Rats and of course Human beings (that’s you and me) are all mammals.

Mammals are friendly or fierce, cuddly, cute and/or awesome – depending on which ones you look at.

They fascinate and horrify us at the same time!

We eat them, ride them, keep them as pets, makes clothes out of them, hunt other mammals with them and use them as substitutes for ourselves in scientific (particularly medical) research.

We use them to carry our burdens, support our foolish habits (gambling) and expect them to entertain us. To most people animals are mammals.

Many people are totally dependent on non-human mammals to keep their lives functioning (vegetarians and vegans excepted) and many of us need them as emotional supports as well.

We are mammals (genetically a man and his dog are 97% the same) and we love them because they are like us.

We use them to describe people. Someone is a dog, bitch, stallion, pig, cow, kitten, bunny… we run like a rabbit, weasel out of a deal, are as sly as a fox, as strong as an Ox and can have a whale of a time!

Our mammalian cousins are very important to us.

But how much do you really know about what it takes to be a mammal?

Mammals may have only become successful as a group relatively recently, but they have been around a long time.

The first mammals appeared about 265 million years ago, a mere 10 million years after the first dinosaurs. But they remained relatively obscure for the first 160 million years while the dinosaurs ruled (see The Evolution of Mammals).

Anyhow, let’s continue our journey of learning, starting with some of the most interesting facts about mammals:

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The Largest Mammal In The World

The Blue Whale, Balaenoptera musculus, is the largest mammal living today.

It is also the largest mammal to have ever lived. In fact the Blue whale is the largest animal ever to have lived on the planet, as far as we know. Bigger by far than even the largest Dinosaur.

The longest Blue Whale ever measured was a female, 33.58m or 110ft long. The heaviest weighed over 190 tonnes.

The largest animal in the world, a blue whale showing its back

Well, we haven’t actually got a set of weighing scales big enough – so weights are estimated from the cut up remains.

The largest living land animal on this planet is a mammal – the bull African Elephant. The largest specimen recorded stood around 3.96m or 13ft at the shoulder and weighed over 12 tonnes.

The tallest animal on the planet is also a mammal – Giraffes, Giraffa camelopardalis, can be 6.1m or 20ft tall.

The Smallest Mammal In The World

The smallest mammal in the world is a bat from Thailand, Kitli’s Hog-nosed Bat, Craseonycteris thonglongyai.

Being only 2.9-3.3cm or 1.14-1.3 inches long and weighing a mere 1.7 – 2 g or 0.06 – 0.07oz, this bat is much smaller than many insects and snails.

Pygmy shrew (Suncus etruscus)

In a close 2nd place, the Pygmy or Savi’s White-toothed Shrew Suncus etruscus weighs in at 1.5 – 2.5 grams or 0.05 – 0.09oz and is definitely the smallest land mammal on record.

The Fastest Mammal

The Cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus, is the fastest animal on land – reaching sprinting speeds of over 98 kmh or 61 mph. In 2012 National Geographic radar recorded an eleven year old Cheetah named Sarah running at 98 kmh. Sarah was a zoo kept animal who didn’t have to run flat out every day to catch her dinner and eleven years is getting old for a Cheetah, therefore scientists believe younger animals living wild can probably run quite a bit faster than this, perhaps up to 110 kilometers per hour.

Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) running through savannah at fast speed

The fastest mammal in the water is the Killer Whale, Orcinus orca, which has been recorded swimming at speeds of 55.5 kmh or 34 mph!

The fasted mammal in the air is the Big Brown Bat, Eptesicus fuscus, with a recorded flight speed of 25 kmh or 15.5 mph.

Which Lives Longest?

The longest lived mammals are not human beings – as many people think – but the whales.

Fin Whale Balaenoptera physalis is believed to have a maximum life-span of 90 – 114 years, a little less that the human maximum.

But Bowhead Whales (Balaena mysticetus), also known as Greenland Right Whale has been known to live to at least 170 and possibly more than 200 years since the mid 1990s.

A Few More Mammal Facts

Rhinoceroses have the thickest skin of any terrestrial mammal… and the thickest skin in relation to their size, of any animal. The skin on their backs and flanks can be 2.5 cm or 1 inch thick!

Closeup on rhinoceros skin from the side

Nearly a quarter of all mammals can fly.
Yes, it’s true. With a huge 985 species, bats make up 23.1% of all known mammals by species.
The meek shall inherit the earth, or at least Australia (which is a reasonable portion of it). With about 67 million head of sheep, there are about 3 sheep for every person in Australia!
A prehistoric mammal, the extinct Irish Elk, Megaloceros giganteus, had the largest antlers ever. A specimen found in an Irish peat bog had antlers 4.3 m or 14 ft across, which weighed 45kg or 100 lbs.
The Giant Anteater, Myrmecophaga tridactyla, eats over 10,000,000 ants or termites a year.

Closeup of Giant Anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) walking on grass

No two Giraffes have the same pattern of spots and no two Zebras have the same pattern of stripes.
Whales and dolphins sleep one side of their brains at a time. While one side is asleep the other keeps watch for danger!
Sperm Whales can stay submerged for up to two hours, descending over a mile below the surface.
The Andes Fishing Mouse was first recorded for science when scientists from the British Mammal Society watching a television programme on the ‘Wildlife of the Andes’ saw a specimen in the programme and realized that no records of it existed.
House mice, Mus musculus, have on several occasions been so numerous that they had a population density of over 200,000 per hectare. That’s 2 mice for every square meter of land, if they were all spaced out evenly.

Eastern House Mouse – Mus musculus

Rodents, at least the few species that are pests, cost us about £43 million tonnes of damaged and destroyed food every year.
There is a vine in Madagascar that is pollinated exclusively by lemurs.
Chimpanzees can go bald as they age.
A female kangaroo can produce 2 different kinds of milk at the same time, when she is suckling youngsters of different ages.

Female kangaroo with joey

Anteaters are the only placental mammals to have no teeth.
Hippopotamuses produce a special reddish oil from modified sweat glands that acts like a sun-cream to stop them getting sunburned.
Shrews evolved 54 million years ago. Today some species have such fast metabolisms that they need to eat up to 1.3 times their own weight in food everyday.
A contender for the smelliest mammal is most definitely the Striped Polecat or Ictonyx striatus. It releases a spray from its anal stink glands that not only blinds any attacker, but leaves its skin in searing pain.

Want To Learn More?

Well, I hope you have enjoyed all these wonderful mammal facts. But there is of course, much more to learn!

Perhaps now you’d like to know more about mammal families.

Gordon Ramel

Gordon is an ecologist with two degrees from Exeter University. He’s also a teacher, a poet and the owner of 1,152 books. Oh — and he wrote this website.

We love to hear from our readers. If you have any questions or if you want to get in touch with us, you can find our contact details on our About Us page.

60 Amazing Facts About Mammals

60 Amazing Facts about Mammals that will surprise you | Amazing Facts 4U

Mammals are warm-blooded animals with a backbone. They have lungs to breathe. Mammals give birth to live babies and produce milk.
All mammals have hair or fur.
The amazing fact is that in the past 100 years, humans have caused the extinction of over 90 mammals!
The fact is only 3% of mammal species are monogamous.
A 67 million-year-old dinosaur mummy was found in 2007 in North Dakota!
Dinosaurs walked on their toes.
The amazing fact is that a rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair.
Rhinos are part of the same family as horses.
Cats, Camels, and Giraffes are the only animals that walk right, right, left, left rather than right foot, left foot.
Amazingly when two zebras stand side by side, they usually face in opposite directions so that they can keep an eye out for predators.
The amazing fact is that a donkey’s eyes are placed in such a manner that it can see all four of its feet at all times.
Fact is donkeys kill more people than plane crashes.
Amazingly all mammals, except man and monkey are color blind.
The blood of mammals is red, the blood of insects is yellow, and the blood of lobsters is blue.
The fact is the wild panda’s diet consists of 99 % bamboo.
Sea otters have the thickest fur of all animals.
Otters hold hands when sleeping so they don’t drift away from each other.
The amazing fact is that seals sleep only about one and a half minutes each time.
Manatees are mammals and must surface to breathe every 5 to 10 Minutes or they will drown.
Fact is manatees is the only completely herbivorous marine mammal in the entire world.
It is not possible for a pig to look up at the sky. A pig is the only animal that can get sunburned.
Pigs cannot sweat because they don’t have sweat glands. Instead, they roll around in the mud to keep cool.
Fact is goat’s milk is used more widely throughout the world than cow’s milk.
Amazingly goats have rectangular pupils. This gives goats vision covering 320 – 340 degrees; this means they can see virtually all around them without having to move (humans have vision covering 160 – 210 degrees).
Sheep can detect other sheep faces as humans do. Amazing thing is that they can remember up to 50 sheep faces
A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys can’t.
Macaques monkeys in Japan learned to steal wallets and purses, take out the coins, and use them to buy drinks and snacks from vending machines.
Monkeys can go bald in old age, just like humans can.
The amazing fact is that the mandrill baboon has a red nose, blue cheeks, and an orange beard!
A male baboon can kill a leopard.
Rabbits never walk or trot, but always hop or leap.
Rabbits and guinea pigs can’t sweat.
The only two animals that can see behind themselves without turning its head are the Rabbit and the Parrot.
Amazingly the blood of mammals is red, the blood of insects is yellow, and the blood of lobsters is blue.
At an average speed of 15 Feet per day, the sloth is amazingly the slowest animal on earth.
Sloths take two weeks to digest their food.
Sloths only leave their tree once a week.
The fact is millions of trees are accidentally planted by squirrels that bury nuts and then forget where they hid them.
The Platypus can eat its weight in worms every day.
The duckbill platypus can store amazing six hundred worms in the pouches of its cheeks.
Armadillos spend about 80% of their lives asleep.
All porcupines can float in water as they have hollow quills. They are great swimmers.
The typical porcupine’s body is covered amazingly by 30,000 razor-sharp quills.
A bull known as Starbuck has fathered more than 200,000 cows! Sales of his semen amounted to an astonishing $25 million over his lifetime. This represented about 685,000 doses sold in 45 countries.
Armadillos is the only animal besides humans that can catch leprosy.
The heart of a hamster beats over 450 times a minute while a whale’s heart beats just 20 times a minute.
Amazingly cows and deer face north or south to gaze. They do this all over the world.
It’s amazing that Koalas sleep 22 hours a day. They will stay in the same tree for days.
The platypus does not suckle its young as other mammals do. It does not have nipples, but it exudes milk from specialized sweat glands on its abdomen.
The ‘law of urination’ says that all mammals – regardless of size – pee for 21 seconds!
An amazing fact is that a pioneer named Thomas Austin brought 24 rabbits from England to his property in Australia for hunting in the 1800s. In 61 years its population grew to 400 million! It was the fastest spread ever recorded of any mammal anywhere in the world.
European hares can get pregnant while already pregnant. The result is that the time between births gets reduced from 42 days to 38 days with the ability for “double” pregnancy.
Zebras are black with white stripes and not the other way round!
All cattle and deer sleep with their heads pointing north! This was not known until 2008.
Sloths mistakenly grab their arms instead of the branches of a tree, and they fall to their deaths.
The loudest land animal is the Howler monkey whose deep growls can travel up to 3 miles in the forest.
Squirrels forget where about 50% of the nuts they’ve hidden are.
Did you know a slug has not only one nose but four? What a lot of people call a nose on a slug is actually a breathing pore called a pneumostome.
The short-nosed Bandicoot has a gestation period of only 12 days.
South American Giant Anteater eats over 30,000 ants, per day.

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~ By Amazing Facts 4U Team

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Amazing facts about marine mammals…

February 19 is known as the date — World Marine Mammal Day .

Whales, dolphins and seals arouse unrelenting interest as unique, highly intelligent mammals adapted to living in the aquatic environment. Marine mammals are warm-blooded animals, breathe air with the help of their lungs, bear and give birth to young, have hair (at least for some time of life).

In the 60s of the XX century, whales were exterminated for the sake of obtaining whale meat, which was sold in expensive restaurants, valuable whale ambergris — it was added to perfumery, and whale oil, which was used for smokeless lighting of premises, added to baby food and used in the production of nitroglycerin.

The vast majority of valuable species of marine mammals are included in the Red Books of various ranks — international, national and regional, as well as in the publications of the «Red Lists of Threatened Species» under the auspices of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

In our country, Marine Mammal Day has been celebrated since 2002 and is of particular importance: several dozen species of whales, dolphins, seals and sea otters live in the Russian seas. Many of them are endangered and are listed in the Red Books of various levels.

These animals are just like people — they breathe with lungs, not gills, feed on milk in infancy and try not to lose sight of their mother, and the ingenuity of some makes them start to doubt the Darwinian theory and thoughts that a person is more beautiful and smarter than all.

Surprisingly, despite the fact that whales, dolphins, are born in water, they, like people, cannot stay under water for a long time, during active swimming, they emerge for another breath of air every 12 to 15 minutes.

A dolphin will drown if only one tablespoon of water (15 ml) enters its lungs. In comparison, a person needs two tablespoons of water to drown.
The process of breathing in dolphins is not brought to automatism, as in humans — the dolphin must control the process of breathing, forcing itself to inhale. There have been several cases of dolphins committing suicide by simply stopping breathing.

According to the Russian Geographical Society, marine mammals are both predatory and herbivorous. Manatees, for example, are herbivorous mammals, they feed on algae, while dolphins and killer whales are predators and feed mainly on fish.

The killer whale is considered the most dangerous and fastest marine mammal, in addition to fish, some killer whales can attack other whales, hence their other name came from — «killer whale». And dolphins, despite the fact that they are also predators, are very friendly, including to humans, so they often initiate communication themselves.

Whales — multi-ton giants are peaceful and playful. Some of them live up to 200 years, but it has not been fully understood why the whales die.

Throughout the summer, whales feed almost non-stop, absorbing up to 3 tons of food per day — that’s about 8 million calories. However, for 8 months a year, whales eat almost nothing and survive on subcutaneous fat.

Blue whales are the largest animals on Earth. Their length can reach 33 meters, and weight exceed 150 tons. Newborn whales weigh several tons and have a body length of about 8 meters. They drink 350-39 a day0 liters of milk.

The larger the animal, the less often it gives offspring. The duration of pregnancy in female whales is one year. Over the past 50 years, more than two million whales have been destroyed, animal rights activists pay attention.

In a second, whales inhale 2,000 liters of air, and their heart pumps 8,000 liters of blood. For comparison, a person exhales 0.5 liters of air in one respiratory cycle, and 4-6 liters of blood circulates through the human body.

Documentary film «The Cove» tells about the problem of killing dolphins during the annual hunt on the island of Taiji. This is the only documentary about dolphins to win an Oscar.

Dolphins have 100 teeth, but they use them only for catching prey — dolphins swallow food whole. Dolphins have two stomachs: one is used to store food, the other is used for digestion. Just like humans, dolphins can recognize tastes: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter.
Seals are really fat creatures. Moreover, they need fat not only to keep warm, but also to improve buoyancy.

Seals are covered with hair and molt. During molting, individuals rub their backs against each other, helping to get rid of old wool. Seal pups are born covered with short white fur.

Marine mammals are the most ancient inhabitants of our planet. The findings of paleontologists confirm the existence of whales and seals 26 million years ago in the Cenozoic period.

However, remember: marine mammals are defenseless against humans!

Prepared on the basis of information from open sources. Information taken from the Scientific Russia portal (scientificrussia.ru)

18 facts about animals that will surprise even biology teachers

Baku, February 4, AZERTAC

Bees can be pessimists, pigs hardly sweat, some seals could well voice Star Wars. The animal world is extremely fascinating, and every day you can learn something new about the life of our neighbors on the planet. AZERTAC with a link to Bright Side presents various interesting and touching facts about animals that you may not have heard about.

Rats giggle when you tickle them

But they do it at such high pitches that scientists needed special equipment to hear them.

Mangalitsa is the only pig breed in the world covered with wool

These animals are also called “sheep pigs”: their wool is thick and curly, like that of sheep. But for the manufacture of knitted products it is not used.

Atlantic puffins form pairs for life

They rub their beautiful noses, securing the union, and then dig a hole and build a nest in it. Sometimes, when they are too lazy to dig holes themselves, puffins «squeeze» them from rabbits.

Whiskered tits by Jean-Claude Van Damme of the animal world

These birds, whose males sport luxurious whiskers, are often compared to billiard balls because they are so round. But the titmouse is not thick, but very fluffy. They sit on the splits to achieve balance on thin branches and reed stalks, and their stretch is impressive.

Zebras do not like to sleep alone

Like horses, zebras sleep standing up. There are too many predatory enemies around these animals who want to feast on them. Therefore, the zebra sleeps only if there are those nearby who agree to watch over her sleep.

Among ring-tailed lemurs, the stinkiest is considered to be the most important

These adorables with naive round eyes are very fond of organizing competitions for the title of the main stinker. They mark their gorgeous tail and start waving it in front of other applicants. The winner is the one whose smell literally hits the nose.

Otters can solve puzzles

Moreover, those who are not very good at the beginning observe their relatives and take an example from individuals who are good at it. If otters had their own schools, they would probably quickly think of cheat sheets.

Scientists have been led to believe that kangaroos don’t fart. And only later did they find out that in the gases they emit, the amount of methane — one of the most odorous waste products of intestinal bacteria — is minimal.

Penguins are very romantic

These handsome men dressed in tailcoats know how to take care of their ladies. Like people, they make an “offer” to the chosen one, but instead of a ring, where can they get it from? — give the smoothest stones, carefully selected by them from coastal pebbles.

Baby elephants suck on their trunks to calm themselves.

In this respect, baby elephants are no different from children who suck on their thumbs to calm down. It is also quite difficult for them to get rid of this habit, and even an adult elephant in a stressful state can, like a small one, put its trunk in its mouth.

Koala fingerprints are similar to human ones

The similarity is so great that some media began to tell stories about unfortunate investigators who were baffled by fingerprints found at the crime scene. However, scientists assure that there is no need to worry: not a single koala will be arrested on false charges, because for a specialist the differences are obvious.

Dogs sneeze to give you a secret signal

Dogs sneeze is as much a means of communication as barking or whining. Of course, they can sneeze from dust in their noses, but they also use different types of sneeze to let them know that everything is fine and they are just playing, or to let them know that they are tired and want to take a break.

At least half of a sloth’s weight is in the stomach

These slow animals have the same unhurried metabolism. They need long hours to digest a handful of food. In a sloth that has had a good bite, 2/3 of its body weight is the stomach. And once a week, the animal has to leave the inhabited tree to go to the toilet.

Hero rats live in Africa

And this is not an exaggeration. Gambian hamster rats truly save lives. They are trained to find unexploded mines. A rat named Magawa even received a PDSA gold medal for his work, which is awarded to animals for bravery and devotion to duty.

The color of an owl’s eyes reveals its sleep pattern

This does not mean that a sleepy owl has red eyes. It’s just that black-eyed owls are usually nocturnal, yellow-eyed owls are diurnal, and orange-eyed owls are active at dusk and dawn.

There are fabulous penguins in Australia

This is how little penguins are called in this country. Not those who simply did not come out tall, but those who belong to a subspecies that has such a name. So the Australians were advised to call the birds not only by the tiny size of the animals, but also by the unusual — blue — color of the feathers.