Mammals Of Tropical Africa
BY Mammals are meant those animals
which have a bony skeleton; which are warm-blooded; which have a covering of hair
or fur; whose young are born alive; and in which the mother feeds the young on milk
during the earliest part of their lives. You will have no difficulty in thinking
of a great many animal; which answer to this description dogs, cats, horses, goats,
elephants, are all mammals. Most mammals live on dry land, walking like the elephant,
racing like the hare, or running like the dog. Others live in water, like the whale
which live in the sea, or the manatee which lives in rivers, and these have become
fishlike in shape, which is the best shaped for swimming. Others live half on land
and half in the water, like the hippopotamus. There are also flying mammals like
bats, and mammals which live in trees like monkeys.
It is possible to divide the mammals, which at first sight appear to be so numerous and so different from each other, into various groups. In each group are placed
those mammals which are like each other, in their structure, habits, and in the
kind of food they
eat. Six groups are well represented in Africa: The flesh-eating
mammals, e.g., the leopard. The grass- and leaf-eating mammals, e.g., the antelope.
The monkeys. The bats. Gnawing mammals, e.g., rats, mice, squirrel Manatees. The
flesh-eating mammals, of which we may take the leopard as an example, have all the
qualities which enable them to find, catch and kill other animals for they must
have the flesh of other animals for their food.
The leopard has a slim, lithe, active body; it can lie crouching low, and then suddenly
make a spring upon its prey; it has extremely sharp teeth and claws for catching
an animal and tearing it to pieces; its claws can be thrust out and withdrawn as
the animal likes; it has eyesight so keen that it can see in the dark, for it hunts
chiefly by night, and a strong sense of smell and hearing so that it can readily
detect an animal approaching it; its feet are provided with soft pads so that it
can approach its prey very silently, for if it made any noise the animal would hear
it and escape, and the leopard would go hungry.
In West
Africa there are two kinds of leopards. One is larger than the other and lives more
in the open, preying upon antelope, duiker and other wild animals; or if these are
scarce it will come into a village at night, or even in the daytime if it is very
hungry, and pounce upon a sheep, goat or dog, and carry it off to its lair. The
smaller leopard lives more in the forest, where it climbs the trees and lies in
wait for some animal to pass underneath. You will see a strong likeness between
the leopard and the cat-they have the same shape, the same sharp teeth and claws,
the coat of fur, and the same power of crouching and springing.
The cat through having been tamed has lost some of its wild habits, and will now
feed on any kind of food offered to it, but it is so like the leopard in other ways
that we can have no doubt that it is related to it. The African bush cat is another relation, and is a large cat living in the forest and feeding on goats and other
animals. It is also called the golden cat. In West Africa we also have the civet
eat, the genet cat, the cerval cat, all flesh-eaters, and similar in habits to the
leopard.
Between the head and thorax there is a distinct joint, and between
the thorax and abdomen the body is very narrow and forms a "waist". The bodies of
all insects are further subdivided by lines across them, the parts between these
lines being called segments. Most insects have a hard, horny covering outside their
real skin; this covering is for protection. Insets do not have lungs to breathe
with, but breathe through very fine air pipes or tubes, called trachea, which open through holes in the horny covering, and by repeated branching reach into every
part of the body.