Animals

The mammals that I have chosen are hyraxes and marsupials. These two mammals come from two different classes of mammals one being hyraxes come from the hyracoidean and the marsupials come from metatheria. Hyraxes are jack-rabbit sized animals with short tails and peculiar, 3-toed hind feet with almost hoof-like nails on two of the toes; the inner toe has a claw. The forefeet have 5 toes. The marsupials today are mostly found in Central and South America and Australasia are all together there is about 270 species.   In Australia were rhinoceros-sized marsupial herbivores, kangaroos nearly 10 feet tall and carnivorous lion-like forms with shearing teeth and retractile claws. In South America, where parallel radiations of large placental herbivores may have denied these herbivorous niches to marsupials, marsupials filled many carnivore niches and many rodent-like forms. In searching these two mammals I found that there was no characteristics that are shared between these two mammals other than they are both mammals. The differences in these two mammals are: the hyraxes have only seven species and the marsupials have two hundred and seventy. Then the hyraxes eat leaves, bark, grass, and insects and the marsupials are omnivore, insectivore, carnivores, and herbivores. The hyraxes are in the Hyracoidea order and the marsupials are in the Metatheria infraclass.
The insects that I have chosen are beetles and mayflies. The beetle has the largest number of known species and about 40% of insects are beetles. The mayfly has several different species and live all over the world although from country to country its different species. Both the beetle and the mayfly can live on land or in the water they also both lay eggs when it is time to reproduce and the mayfly can lay their eggs in the water and they can last up to a year. The beetles have over 400,000 species and the may fly has about 2,500 with about 630 in North America. The beetle can live up to weeks and even years...