SCIENCE

Welcome to March Mammal Madness: Real animals wage fictional battles, while students use science—a lot of it—to try to predict the winner. This year’s champion: the short-faced bear! (NPR)

What are mammals? Why are they mad?

Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers Toolkit.

Discussion Ideas

• It’s time for March Mammal Madness! What are mammals?
  • A mammal is a class of vertebrate animal with several distinguishing characteristics. Mammals:
    • are hairy. All mammals have at least some hair. (Yes, even naked mole rats and whales.)
      • No other type of animal has true hair.
    • have auditory ossicles. Auditory ossicles are three tiny bones in the middle ear: the malleus (hammer), incus (anvil), and stapes (stirrup). These bones transmit sounds from the air to the inner ear.
      • No other type of animal has true auditory ossicles.
    • have a single jaw bone.
      • Mammals are the only animal with this type of jaw. Way back in mammal evolutionary history, two jaw bones were reduced in size and incorporated into … auditory ossicles. Evolution is awesome, don’t let anyone tell you different.
    • have sweat glands.
      • Primates like us are covered in sweat glands, which help keep our body cool. Other mammals have fewer and in more isolated places (like eyelids and ears).
    • can lactate. Female mammals produce milk to feed their offspring.
      • No other type of animal lactates.
    • are endothermic. Mammals are warm-blooded, meaning they are able to maintain a constant body temperature regardless of external influences such as weather.
      • Birds and some fish are also endotherms.
    • are viviparous. This means female mammals give birth to live young.
      • Many species of amphibians, fish, and reptiles are also viviparous.
      • Monotremes, those weird mammals that include platypuses, are not viviparous.
    • have a four-chambered heart.
      • Birds also have four-chambered hearts.
  • There are 19 orders of mammals. The three largest orders in terms of number of species are Rodentia (rodents), Chiroptera (bats), and Soricomorpha (shrews, moles, and solenodons).

• So, we know what mammals are. What’s the madness?
  • March Mammal Madness is an annual tournament developed by scientists, pitting representatives of different categories of mammals against each other.
    • The bracket-like system mimics the March Madness brackets of the NCAA tournament.
  • This year’s championship battle pitted the extinct short-faced bear, one of the largest mammalian predators in history, against the honey badger. The ecosystem was chaparral—specifically, the Cape of Good Hope. The short-faced bear ultimately tossed the honey badger out of the way, securing victory. The honey badger ran away, but did not perish.

• How do scientists determine the outcomes of the battles?
  • Science, of course. Characteristics evaluated “include body mass, fight style, armor, weaponry, temperament, and ability to function in different environments.”
  • Scientists developing the play-by-play include evolutionary biologists, conservationists, ecologists, biologists, animal behaviorists, paleoanthropologists, and marine biologists.
  • As in any tournament, chance also plays a part. For example, “there are plenty of upsets and broken hearts—like the time a snow leopard and a flying squirrel faced off in the rain forest. The snow leopard overheated and lost. Or the time tourists used their human junk food to lure an adorable quokka off the playing field.”
    • This year, a twist came when the honey badger scampered up a tree to escape the short-faced bear. But the short trees of the chaparral environment put him right at jaw level of the short-faced bear. (He survived.)

• This year’s big four brackets were Adjective Mammals, Coulda Shoulda, Desert Adapted, and Two Animals One Mammal. Take a look at the bracket and see if your students can think of any other examples that could have played in March Mammal Madness.
  • Adjective Mammals. Each mammal’s name in this bracket is prefaced by an adjective: clouded leopard, pouched rat, spotted skunk, etc.
    • red kangaroo?
    • red panda?
    • red fox? (or Redd Foxx!)
  • Coulda Shoulda. Half the mammals in this bracket are still around, and half are either extinct or mythical: tiger, Pegasus, Neanderthal hunting party, etc.
    • cyclops?
    • sheep?
    • Marala, that emu man we wrote about earlier this week?
  • Desert Adapted. All mammals here live in a desert environment—aardwolf, patas monkey, honey badger, etc.
    • coyote?
    • camel?
    • quoll?
  • Two Animals One Mammal. All animals here have two-part names, each of which could stand alone as an animal—hog deer, squirrel monkey, grasshopper mouse, etc.
    • whale shark?
    • mongoose lemur?
    • leopard seal?

• Hold your own mammal madness, and don’t limit it to March! Can your students think of four mammal categories and 16 examples of each? There are more than 5,000 extant species; you can do it.
  • Colorful Mammals?
    • blue whale?
    • red panda?
    • white-tailed deer?
  • Antarctic mammals?
    • leopard seal?
    • southern right whale?
    • Antarctodon? (gotcha! It’s an extinct hoofed mammal)
  • Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad? (half the mammals stand on two legs, half on four)
    • domestic pig? (4)
    • Homo naledi? (2)
    • black-flanked rock wallaby? (2)

TEACHERS TOOLKIT

March Mammal Madness 2017 (Twitter)

March Mammal Madness 2017

NPR: A New Kind Of March Madness Hits Schools

Nat Geo: What are Mammals?