English Across the Curriculum
The World of Mammals
How Mammals Move
Most mammals live and move on the ground. They have four legs and walk by lifting one foot at a time or by trotting. Kangaroos hop and use their tail for balancing.
Mammals that live in forests spend a lot of their time in trees. Monkeys can grasp tree branches with claws and can hang on to them with their curved tail. Mammals often spend time hanging upside down in trees.
Monkeys hang around in trees most of the time.
Image: Dmitry Makeev, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dolphins and whales are mammals that live and move around in water. Instead of limbs they have flippers which they use to move forward. Other animals, like the hippopotamus, only spend some time in the water.
Bats are the only flying mammals. Their wings are made of skin stretched over their bones. They can fly by beating their wings up and down.
Gophers and moles are mammals that spend most of their life underground.
