🦁 Mammals: Life Processes & Adaptations
Grade 7 Biology — Exploring the most diverse class of warm-blooded vertebrates
🔬 What Makes a Mammal?
Mammals are a class of endothermic (warm-blooded) vertebrates — animals with backbones that generate their own body heat internally.
Two defining characteristics:
- Mammary glands — produce milk, a nutritious fluid containing disease-fighting molecules and all the nutrients a baby mammal needs.
- Body hair (or fur) — present at some stage of life in every mammal species.
Modern mammals belong to three major groups (clades):
🥚 Monotremes
Egg-laying mammals
e.g., Platypus, Echidna
🦘 Marsupials
Give birth to immature young; develop in a pouch
e.g., Kangaroo, Koala
🐘 Eutherians (Placental)
Complex placenta nourishes fetus inside mother
e.g., Humans, Whales, Dogs
🌳 Mammal Classification Tree
Interactive visualization — available in the full lesson