Skip to main content

Mammal Traits: Hair and Mammary Glands

This video presents the same text shown beside it, spoken and on screen. It adds nothing the text does not say.

State

Mammals are defined by hair or fur at some life stage and by mammary glands producing milk to nourish offspring.

Show

A nursing mammal's young feed on milk from mammary glands, a trait no non-mammal vertebrate lineage shares.

Watch for

Hair coverage varies widely among adult mammals, including species with little visible hair, but the trait appears at some stage in every mammal.