Found in western Thailand and south-east Burma, this super-light bat lives in caves in colonies of up to 500 and it heads out to feed on insects at dusk and dawn.
Wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus
Length 15.2-19.8cm (including tail) Weight 13-27g
Found in Europe and North Africa, this mini-mammal weighs less than a packet of crisps. It’s usually nocturnal, feeding on seeds, insects, fruits, nuts and seedlings.
Red squirrel Sciurus vulgaris
Length 38-40cm (including tail) Weight 280-350g
Found throughout most of Europe and into northern Asia and Siberia, this bushy-tailed mammal weighs less than a can of fizzy drink and it feeds on pine seeds, flower buds, leaves and fruit, the occasional insects and birds’ eggs.
Side-striped jackal Canis adustus
Length 65-100cm Weight 8-15kg
Found in large swathes of Sub-Saharan Africa, this member of the canine family feeds mainly at night on small mammals, carrion and fruit.
Common wombat Vombatus ursinus
Length 1-1.2m Weight 27-35kg
This stocky, burrow-dwelling marsupial is found in mainland Australia and Tasmania. It has rodent-like teeth and very impressive looking claws. It lives in burrows and grazes on grass mainly at night.
Capybara Hydrochoeris hydrochaeris
Length 106-134cm Weight 35-66kg Height 50-62cm
The largest member of the rodent family lives in South America and feeds on grass and aquatic vegetation.
Human Homo sapiens
Height 1.75m Weight 76-83kg
We are the most widely dispersed mammal, found throughout the world, from polar regions to the tropics. Humans are largely omnivorous, eating everything from whale meat and witchetty grubs to Brussel sprouts and turkey twizzlers.
Polar bear Ursus maritimus
Length 2.4-2.6m Weight 400-600kg Height 1-1.5m
Only found in the Arctic territories of Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia and the USA, the polar bear is an impressive predator that feeds almost exclusively on seals and (when it can) whale carcasses or other carrion.
Giraffe Giraffa camelopardalis
Height 5.3m (male) Weight Up to 1,900kg
Found in savannah and woodlands in sub-Saharan Africa this necky ungulate weighs more than a family estate car. It eats the leaves of acacia trees and other plants.
African elephant Loxodonta Africana
Length 6-7.5m (male) Weight 6,000kg Height 3.3m
The largest land mammal, found across sub-Saharan Africa. It is active during the day, feeding on grass, leaves, bark, roots and fruits. But the elephant doesn’t come close to the largest mammal of all.
An adult male blue whale weighs an average of 190,000kg!
The blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine mammal belonging to the suborder of baleen whales (called Mysticeti). At 30 metres (98 ft)[4] in length and 170 tonnes (190 short tons) or more in weight, it is the largest known animal to have ever existed.”
James Fair writes about wildlife conservation and broader environmental issues for a wide range of publications, including BBC Wildlife and BBC Countryfile magazines. James started his career as a journalist in the early 1990s, then spent a number of years working on conservation projects in South America, including an ultimately doomed effort to reintroduce an orphaned Andean bear cub into the wild in Bolivia. In 1999, James joined BBC Wildlife as a commissioning editor, while later filling the roles of staff writer, environment editor and keyboard destroyer-in-chief. In 2018, he went freelance, and now takes on a range of news, feature and report writing assignments, and is also the editor of the membership magazine of the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES). In 2019, he published his second book, 100 Great Wildlife Experiences: What to see and where.
