A mammal is a vertebrate animal of the class Mammalia. Mammals are characterized by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three middle ear bones. These characteristics distinguish them from reptiles and birds, from which their ancestors diverged in the Carboniferous Period over 300 million years ago. Around 6,400 extant species of mammals have been described and divided into 29 orders.
Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a pouch. Living marsupials include opossums, Tasmanian devils, kangaroos, koalas, wombats, wallabies, and bandicoots among others, while many extinct species, such as the thylacine, are also known.
Vespertilionidae is a family of microbats, of the order Chiroptera, flying, insect-eating mammals variously described as the common, vesper, or simple nosed bats. The vespertilionid family is the most diverse and widely distributed of bat families, specialised in many forms to occupy a range of habitats and ecological circumstances, and it is frequently observed or the subject of research. The facial features of the species are often simple, as they mainly rely on vocally emitted echolocation. The tails of the species are enclosed by the lower flight membranes between the legs. Over 300 species are distributed all over the world, on every continent except Antarctica. It owes its name to the genus Vespertilio, which takes its name from a word for bat, vespertilio, derived from the Latin term vesper meaning 'evening'; they are termed "evening bats" and were once referred to as "evening birds".
In zoology, mammalogy is the study of mammals – a class of vertebrates with characteristics such as homeothermic metabolism, fur, four-chambered hearts, and complex nervous systems. Mammalogy has also been known as "mastology," "theriology," and "therology." The archive of number of mammals on earth is constantly growing, but is currently set at 6,495 different mammal species including recently extinct. There are 5,416 living mammals identified on earth and roughly 1,251 have been newly discovered since 2006. The major branches of mammalogy include natural history, taxonomy and systematics, anatomy and physiology, ethology, ecology, and management and control. The approximate salary of a mammalogist varies from $20,000 to $60,000 a year, depending on their experience. Mammalogists are typically involved in activities such as conducting research, managing personnel, and writing proposals.
The Weddell seal is a relatively large and abundant true seal with a circumpolar distribution surrounding Antarctica. The Weddell seal was discovered and named in the 1820s during expeditions led by British sealing captain James Weddell to the area of the Southern Ocean now known as the Weddell Sea. The life history of this species is well documented since it occupies fast ice environments close to the Antarctic continent and often adjacent to Antarctic bases. It is the only species in the genus Leptonychotes.
The mahogany glider is an endangered gliding possum native to a small region of coastal Queensland in Australia.
Gilbert's potoroo or ngilkat is Australia's most endangered marsupial, the rarest marsupial in the world, and one of the world's rarest critically endangered mammals, found in south-western Western Australia. It is a small nocturnal macropod that lives in small groups.
CSIRO Publishing is an Australian-based science and technology publisher. It publishes books, journals and magazines across a range of scientific disciplines, including agriculture, chemistry, plant and animal sciences, natural history and environmental management. It also produces interactive learning modules for primary school students and provides writing workshops for researchers.
The red-tailed phascogale, also known as the red-tailed wambenger, red-tailed mousesack or kenngoor, is a small carnivorous marsupial found in inland areas of south-western Western Australia, and has been reintroduced in sanctuaries in WA and the Northern Territory. It is listed as near threatened by the IUCN Red List, vulnerable under the federal EPBC Act, and its status varies between extinct and conservation-dependent under respective legislation in other states and territories of Australia.
The Christmas Island shrew, also known as the Christmas Island musk-shrew is an extremely rare or possibly extinct shrew from Christmas Island. It was variously placed as subspecies of the Asian gray shrew or the Southeast Asian shrew, but morphological differences and the large distance between the species indicate that it is an entirely distinct species.
The Society for Marine Mammalogy was founded in 1981 and is the largest international association of marine mammal scientists in the world.
Don Ellis Wilson is an American zoologist. His main research field is mammalogy, especially the group of bats which he studied in 65 countries around the world.
Marine Mammal Science is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all topics about or related to marine mammals. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of The Society for Marine Mammalogy. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2015 impact factor of 1.665.
The Journal of Mammalian Evolution is the official journal of the Society for the Study of Mammalian Evolution. The journal is peer-reviewed Bi-monthly is a multidisciplinary forum devoted to studies on the comparative morphology, molecular biology, paleobiology, genetics, developmental and reproductive biology, biogeography, systematics, ethology and ecology, and population dynamics of mammals and the ways that these diverse data can be analyzed for the reconstruction of mammalian evolution. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2014 impact factor of 2.357.
Jocelyn Mary Taylor was an American mammalogist, who served as president of the American Society of Mammalogists from 1982 to 1984. She was also an honorary trustee of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. As a pioneer for women in the field of mammalogy, Taylor actively worked to broaden the study, doing so as a member on the American Society of Mammalogists, as a university professor, and through conducting her own research, publishing numerous works.
Kit Kovacs is a marine mammal researcher, best known for her work on biology, conservation and management of whales and seals. She is based at the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI), Tromsø and is an Adjunct professor of biology, Marine Biology, at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS).
William F. Perrin was an American biologist specializing in the fields of cetacean taxonomy, reproductive biology, and conservation biology. He is best known for his work documenting the unsustainable mortality of hundreds of thousands of dolphins per year in the tuna purse-seine fishery of the eastern tropical Pacific. This work became a primary motivation for the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972). His work on cetacean taxonomy was acknowledged in 2002 when a newly recognized species of beaked whale, Perrin's beaked whale, which was named in his honor.
Arthur H. Harris is an American mammalogist and paleontologist.
