 | Are in the class Mammalia within the subphylum
Vertebrata. |
| Are warm-blooded. They
have the ability to maintain their body temperature by internal means. The technical
word for this is endothermy. Birds are the only other group of animals in the
world that can do this. |
| Feed their babies milk. |
| Have hair. This unique
body covering is made of keratin and grows from special cells located in the skin.
Some mammals are hairier than others. Marine mammals such as whales may be virtually
hairless. |
| Have a four-chambered heart.
This is the most advanced kind of heart. It keeps the arterial (oxygenated) and
venous (oxygen-depleted) blood completely separate. |
| Have live birth. The
monotremes (platypus and echidnas) are exceptions in that they lay eggs. In
marsupials, such as the opossum, the young are born in a very primitive state and then
finish their development in an external pouch. |
| Have very specialized and diversified teeth.
Again, there are some exceptions (monotremes, baleen whales, e.g.) but the mammals have
carried development of teeth farther than any other group of animals. |
| Have a diaphragm. The
diaphragm is the special muscle located below the lungs that draws air into the
lungs. This increases the efficiency of breathing. No other type of animal has
this muscle. |
Currently, there are about 4,630 recognized species of mammals in the world, divided
into 26 living orders. Within Kansas 89 species are known to have occurred from 24
families in 8 orders.
The checklist below is drawn from "A Checklist of the Vertebrate Animals of
Kansas", 3rd Edition, by George D. Potts and Joseph T. Collins, published by Kansas
Biological Survey (2005). This publication is available from the Kansas University
Natural History Museum, 1345 Jayhawk Blvd., Lawrence, KS 66045-7163.
The common and scientific names used for each species are from the Revised Checklist of
North American Mammals North of Mexico, 2003 by Baker et al., published by the Museum of
Texas Tech University, Occasional Papers Number 229 (2003). This publication may be
downloaded (10 meg pdf file) from the Texas Tech website.
For a pdf version of the Kansas list, click here 
(97K).
(On a Windows system, download the file by right clicking on the link and choose
"Save Target As" to save it to your hard drive, then open it from there.
You will need Acrobat Reader to view this file. If you don't have that software
already, you can get it for free from Adobe.)
The scientific name of each species follows the common name and is written in
italics. Species in red are considered extirpated
from the wild in Kansas. Species marked with an asterisk* are not native to Kansas.
As time and resources permit, each species may have its own page which may be selected
from this list.
