Mammal Study – Merit
Badge
Mammal Study is one of the elective merit badges for the
William T. Hornaday awards for Boy Scouts and Varsity Scouts
#5 – Homework part.
select and carry out one project that will
influence the numbers of one or more
mammals.
Jot down at least 5 things that YOU can do, then put your plan into
action.
The following are my ideas, you can use them or think of your own.
Best - Protect their habitat – how can you do this?
• Protect the environment – air, water, land
• Reduse, Reuse, recycle, Clean up an area.
• Reduce pollution
Ideas to improve the habitat of mammals
• Car pool, trax etc. - decreases the need for roads
• Nature preserves
• Pick up your garbage
• Make housing for different mammals
• Follow the gaming (hunting) laws
• Stay on the path
• Leave no trace
• Pick up one piece of trash a day
#1
Explain the meaning of "animal," "invertebrate,"
"vertebrate," and "mammal."
Name three characteristic that distinguish mammals
from all other animals.
1). Animal
• A living, multicellular organism, that
can move on its own and has to eat.
• It is a heterotroph – consumer • Is a fish an animal?
• Yes
• Is a spider an animal?
• Yes
Do all animals move?
• No
• Example – Sponge
• Example – Barnacles
(These animals attach themselves
to something and do not need to
move because they get nutrients
from the ocean tides)
So MOST animals move on their
own.
Are plants a type of animal?
• No
• It does not have to eat
• It is an autotroph – Producer
• There are some plants that DO eat.
• Example – Venus fly trap
• In science – there are NO PERFECT
DEFINITIONS!
2). What is an Invertebrate?
• Without a backbone
• Is a worm an invertebrate?
• Yes
• Is a grasshopper an invertebrate?
• Yes
• Is a snake an invertebrate
• No
• Is a Lobster an Invertebrate?
• Yes
3). What is a Vertebrate?
• Something with a backbone.
• Are you a vertebrate?
• Yes
• Is a frog a vertebrate?
• Yes
• Is a fish a vertebrate?
• Yes
• Is a bird a vertebrate?
• Yes
A shark is flexible because his skeleton is
made of cartilage
• So is a shark a vertebrate?
• Yes. his backbone is made of
flexible cartilage – called a
notochord)
• Is a turtle a vertebrate?
• Yes
4. What is a mammal?
a.Vertebrate
b.With mammary glands
c.And true hair
d.endotherms
mammary glands
• Allows mammals to nurse
their young
5.) Mammals have - True hair
• Hair (true hair)
• Why don’t hair cuts
hurt?
• It is dead.
Short hair
Long hair
Some animals have hair-like growths – not true
hair –
• Example – Insects –
spiders.
• What looks like hair on a
fly or a spider actually
contains living parts of
the animal.
• That means if you cut a
spider's hair it would
HURT! (er, the spider)
Spiders are not
mammals
Some mammals have very little true hair
• Example (just write down two)
• – Rhinoceroses, elephants,
whales, hippopotamus
What is an endotherm?
• Endotherms (warm blooded)
– Endo = into
- Therm = temperature
• Regulate there body temperature
internally.
(don’t need to writ this one down)
What is an ectotherm? (coldblooded)
• Everything else – except birds
• To get warm they must
• move into the sun
• To cool off they must
• Move into the shade
#2
Explain how the animal kingdom is classified.
Explain where mammals fit in the
classification of animals.
Classify three mammals
Animals
Invertebrates
Protozoa
Annelids
Vertebrates
Fish
Amphibians
Reptiles
Mollusks
Birds
Arthropods
Mammals
3 types of Mammals
a. Placental
Example - Us
b. Nonplacental - Marsupial
Example – anything with a
pouch - kangaroo
c. Egg layers – Called
monotremes –
Example – Duckbilled playtypus.
And echidnus
Do whales have belly buttons?
•Yes – They are placental mammals
Young grows inside
mom.
The placenta grows
inside mom and
provides nutrients to
the child
Marsupials – Non placental
• When the young are born, they find their way to the mothers pouch.
• They stay there for several weeks or months, nourished by their
mothers milk
• Kangaroo
• Opossum
• Sugar gliders.
Monotremes
• Mammals that lay eggs.
• Duckbilled platypus
• echidnas
Classify three mammals from phylum through
species
Common Name – Duckbill
Platypus
Scientific name
Blumenbach anatinus
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Mammalia
Order:
Monotremata
Family:
Ornithorhynchidae
Genus:
Species:
Blumenbach,
anatinus
Common name = kangaroo
• Kingdom: Animalia
• Phylum: Chordata
• Class: Mammalia
• Order: Diprotodontia
• Family: Macropodidae
• Genus: Macropus
• Species: rufus
Scientific name: Macropus rufus
Common name: Killer whale
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Order:
Suborder:
Mammalia
Cetacea
Odontoceti
Family:
Delphinidae
Genus:
Orcinus
]
Scientific Name: Orcinus orca
O. orca
Species:
orca
#3
• write a simple history of one nongame mammal that lives in
your area.
• Tell how this mammal lived before its habitat was affected in
any way by man.
• Tell how it reproduces, what it eats, what eats it, and its
natural habitat.
• Describe its dependency upon plants, upon other animals
(including man), and how they depend upon it.
• Tell how it is helpful or harmful to man.
What is the one mammal that fly's?
•BATS
Where do mosquitoes lay their eggs?
• Wet Areas
• Do we have wet areas in Davis county
• YES – THE WET LANDS!
• Mosquito bites can cause illnesses.
• Bats – Like mice and other animals can als0 carry
diseases.
• But are you more likely to be bit by a bat or a
mosquito?
What else do bats eat?
• Insects that eat our Crops
• Davis county has Farms.
• What do we all need to survive?
• Food?
• What is the bottom of the food chain?
• Plants.
Where do bats live?
In the ceiling of Layton high
But what was its natural habitat before Layton
High?
• Caves
• Tree tops
• Anywhere there are insects.
• Wet areas – swamps, rainforests
10. Can bats see? hear? Smell?
• Yes –
• Bats have really big ears.
• Bats have the best hearing of all land mammals.
• Bats hunt at night. This is called nocturnal.
• Bats are not really blind (blind as a bat)
• But bats do not have special night vision so they use echolocation.
Don’t talk with your mouth full
• Some bats eat while flying (they swoop and catch insects -- eating
them while they're still in the air).
• Although some bats make the squeaks needed for echolocation with
their mouths,
• So how do bats do echolation with their mouths full?
• Make sounds with their noses.
•
What are Nose leaves
• special flaps and folds of skin on
their faces .
• send the sounds in different
directions.
• give the bats a rather odd
appearance!
http://www.kidzone.ws/animals/bats/facts8.htm
11 ) There are 900 different species of bats
• they make up one fifth of the world's mammals.
• They are the second largest group of mammals (rodents are the
largest).
What are the two main groups of bats?
1. “flying foxes” – or
megabats - the large
fruit eating.
• Pests to people who
own fruit tree orchards
• Helps Spreads seeds
and pollinate flowers
2. “microbats” - the
smaller • eat insects, blood, fish,
lizards, birds and nectar.
Are vampire bats real?
• Yea but they don’t turn into
dead humans things like
Dracula.
• They rarely bite people and
they rarely kill their prey.
• They mainly feed off the blood
of cows and horses. They bite
the animal, causing it to bleed,
them lap up a really small
amount of blood.
•
#4
We will do “in class” projects to learn more
about mammals
If you miss this day, you will need to do one of the following.
• Visit a natural history museum. Report on how specimens are
prepared and cataloged. Explain the purposes of museums.
• or
• Write a report of 500 words about a mammal species.
#5
select and carry out one project that will
influence the numbers of one or more
mammals.
Jot down at least 5 things that YOU can do, then put your plan into
action.
The following are my ideas, you can use them or think of your own.
Best - Protect their habitat – how can you do this?
• Protect the environment – air, water, land
• Reduse, Reuse, recycle,
• Reduce pollution
• Car pool, trax etc. - decreases the need for roads
• Nature preserves
• Pick up your garbage
• Make housing for different mammals
• Follow the gaming (hunting) laws
• Stay on the path
• Leave no trace
• Pick up one piece of trash a day
• Bill Nye The Science Guy Marine Mammals FULL EPISODE
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=060t-q8ndvk