Question

Sujata says a bat is not a bird but a mammal. How can you support sujata's statement ?

Answer 1

Hint: Mammals are warm-blooded, hairy and have mammary glands which are the most unique mammalian characteristics . They are the only animals that feed their babies with milk. Birds are featured bipeds, true flying vertebrates. Most of them can fly. They are Oviparous and development is direct.

Complete answer:
Before answering the question let’s first understand the characteristics of birds and mammals.
Characteristics of birds:
Birds are featured bipeds, true flying vertebrate. Most of them can fly except flight less birds. They possess beak and have a streamlined body. Forelimbs are modified into wings. The hind limbs generally have scales and are modified to walking, swimming or clasping the tree branches. Skin is generally dry without glands . Endoskeleton is fully ossified and the long bones are hollow with air cavities. Such bones are known as pneumatic bones.
 The digestive tract of birds have additional chambers, the crop and gizzard. Heart is completely four chambered Kidneys are metanephric and three lobed. Cranial nerves are twelve pairs. Olfactory organs are poor. They are warm-blooded animals. They are able to maintain a constant body temperature. Respiration is by lungs. Sexes are separate. Fertilisation is internal. They are Oviparous and develop us directly.
Characteristics of mammals:
These animals are warm-blooded, hairy and have mammary glands which are the most unique mammalian characteristics . They are the only animals that feed their babies with milk. They have two pairs of limbs, adapted for walking, running, climbing, burrowing or flying. They are warm-blooded.
 Teeth come in different (Heterodont) and get stuck in the jaw. Heart is four chambered. They are homothermous . Respiration is by lungs. They are viviparous with few exceptions. Development is direct. In males, testes have come to lie outside the body cavity in scrotal sac. 12 pairs cranial nerves are. The neck generally has seven cervical vertebrae.
Now let’s understand the characteristics of bats.
Bats are capable of flying. For flying they have webbed feet. Their flight is based on the principle of echolocation. Bats are viviparous and they have mammary glands which are only present in mammals.
So bats have characteristics similar to mammals not birds.
Hence bats are flying mammals not birds.

Note:
Several species of bat can fly and eat in the dark due to their known radar system, which allows them to bypass all obstacles. They get most of the information through their ears and the reflected sound waves they emit during flight. back off and get off the bat so that it follows a clear path.
Bats have sophisticated equipment that makes supersonic sounds. As soon as they hit the object, they return and the bat accepts them and follows its own free path.