Mammals

Mammals are animals characterised by having mammary glands in the female, used for suckling their young, and typically fur. They are broadly speaking divided into three major groups:

Placental Mammals

The majority of species where the young develop inside the uterus, they receive nourishment from the blood of the mother via the placenta.

Marsupials

Mainly from Australasia and South America where the young are born at an early stage of development and develop further in a pouch of the mothers body affixed to a teat for nourishment.

Monotremes

Where the young hatch from an egg outside the mothers body and are then nourished with milk, there are only a few species e.g. platypus and echidna.

There are nearly 5,000 species of mammals the smallest shrew weighing only 1.75 grams, the largest whale up to 140 tonnes.

At Chester Zoo we keep over 1000 mammals of around 60 different species, ranging from tiny Harvest Mice right up to Asian Elephants. We keep mammals that represent 9 different orders; Diprotodont marsupials, bats, primates, rodents, carnivores, seals, elephants, odd-toed and even-toed ungulates. More than 80% of our mammals are threatened or near threatened in the wild, with some like the Scimitar-horned Oryx now extinct in the wild and only existing within zoos and other collections around the world.