Mammal Study
- Explain the meaning of "animal," "invertebrate,"
"vertebrate," and "mammal." Name three characteristic
that distinguish mammals from all other animals.
- Explain how the animal kingdom is classified. Explain
where mammals fit in the classification of animals.
Classify three mammals from phylum through species.
- Do ONE of the following:
- Spend 3 hours in each of two different kinds of
natural habitats or at different elevations. List
the different mammal species and individual members
that you identified by sight or sign. Tell why all
mammals do not live in the same kind of habitat.
- Spend 3 hours on each of 5 days on at least a 25-
acre area. List the mammal species you identified by
sight or sign.
- From study and reading, 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.
- Do ONE of the following:
- Under the guidance of a nature center or natural
history museum, make two study skins of rats or
mice. Tell the uses of study skins and mounted
specimens respectively.
- Take good pictures of two kinds of mammals in the
wild. Record light conditions, film used, exposure,
and other factors, including notes on the activities
of the pictured animals.
- Write a life history of a native game mammal that
lives in your area, covering the points outlined in
requirement 3c. List sources for this information.
- Make and bait a tracking pit. Report what mammals
and other animals came to the bait.
- Visit a natural history museum. Report on how
specimens are prepared and cataloged. Explain the
purposes of museums.
- Write a report of 500 words on a book about a mammal
species.
- Trace two possible food chains of carnivorous
mammals from the soil through four stages to the
mammal.
- Work with your counselor, select and carry out one
project that will influence the numbers of one or more
mammals.