Explorer: Mammals!

Explorer: Mammals! — page 3
EAGLE EYED LIBRARY 1 WHAT ARE MAMMALS What does a wolf have to do with a walrus What’s the link between a monkey and a mouse How can a cheetah be related to a bottlenose dolphin It’s our job to find out the answers to all these questions as we explore mammals Scaly ancestors The ancient ancestors of modern mammals didn’t look much like the furry creatures which roam the Earth today 280 million years ago huge Dimetrodon plodded through the undergrowth on the hunt for prey Giant sails waggled on their backs as they chased down reptiles to eat Dimetrodon were enormous lizard like creatures They could grow over 12ft-long with scaly skin and snouts full of sharp teeth They were part of an animal group called synapsids which includes the ancestors of the mammals we know today Long before the dinosaurs existed these synapsids were Earth’s top land predators The ancestors of mammals 6 But then came the worst extinction the world has ever seen Extinction is when species die out completely During this period the climate began to change rapidly Nine out of 10 species died out Lots of synapsids went extinct but one group clung on through the disaster They were much smaller than hefty predators like Dimetrodon and some of them even had fur and whiskers Over time these animals developed into the first mammals around 200 million years ago Today mammals can be found deep in the oceans and on every continent except Antarctica survived the extinction DIMETRODON