Scientific Taxonomy and Earth's Biodiversity

Scientific Taxonomy and Earth's Biodiversity

Maurice Young

Bio/100

November 11, 2012

Brettany Webster

Scientific Taxonomy and Earth's Biodiversity

The Smoky bat can be found in the humid rainforest of Costa Rica living in caves or beneath logs next to streams of water. These small mammals with thick coarse fur ranging from colors of brownish gray, dark gray and slate blue, and weighing only 3 grams in size; travel in colonies of about 50 to 250 bats or more. The Smoky bat belongs to the Chiroptera order in the Animalia kingdom which houses animals that eat a variety of foods, have forelimbs which support the wing membrane, and wings are not made of feathers but of skin membrane. The two other species that belong to the Chiroptera order would be the Comoro black flying fox and the silver-haired bat.

The Smoky flying squirrel can be found in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand among the forest and tropical dry forest. The Smoky flying squirrel doesn’t really fly but can extend skin flaps on both sides of its body to travel from tree to tree. The Smoky flying squirrels tail is also important to them because it helps them to break and land on tree trunks and limbs. The Smoky squirrel belongs to the Rodentia order because these species of rodents that live in diverse habitats were they are active only at night and some are during the dawn and dusk. The main characteristics are: teeth that they use for gnawing wood, grains, and biting predators. The two most familiar species that belong to the Rodentia order is the mouse and Chipmunk.

The most common characteristics shared by the bats and the flying squirrels are that they both travel through the air to get from one place to the other and that they both are nocturnal. The differences about the bats and flying squirrels are: bats only eat insects (moths and butterflies) while flying squirrels eat plants and flowers, and bats live in large colonies while the flying squirrels live in...