You could win this awesome platypus shirt from SnorgTees.com!

Here is a practice practical that covers all of the Colorado orders & families. And here’s how you can WIN!

Submit your answers to the practice practical (along with name & lab section #) to me, lashelle at rams dot colostate dot edu, by Wednesday night (Dec. 9) at midnight. Anyone who gets 80% or more correct will be entered in a drawing to win this fabulous shirt!

You’ll need to click on the picture to view the question underneath.

Good luck!

 

Answer Key

How much of the practical will be from the first half of the course?

Expect about 10-15% of the questions to be from the first part of the course. There’s a good chance you’ll see at least one representative of every Colorado family. There’s a really really good chance that you won’t see anything at all from Weeks 1-3.

What order are those stinkin’ pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, walruses) in?

On your blue sheets, it says pinnipeds are in the Order Pinnipedia. In lecture, you were given a newer classification, in which pinnipeds are in Order Carnivora, Suborder Caniformia, Superfamily Pinnipedia. In the review session, I used Order Pinnipedia, because back when I took Mammalogy, when I had to walk uphill to school both ways in the snow while being chased by dinosaurs, that’s how I learned it.

SOOOOO… bottom line is, that’s obviously a bit confusing. If we asked you what order one of those animals was in, we would accept either Pinnipedia or Carnivora. Conversely, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to be able to pick a pinniped out of a lineup, that is, be able to answer: “Which of the following animals is a pinniped?” And it would be ridiculously mean of us to ask for a suborder or superfamily for *this* group of critters.

Do we have to know animals that aren’t in Colorado?

Yes. You don’t need to know the FAMILIES of non-Colorado animals (example: “Girrafidae” is on your blue sheets), but you do need to know anything above that if it’s on the blue sheets (example: superfamilies in the Primates).

I can’t access the review session Power Point!

That’s because my computer came out right after ENIAC (at right) and doesn’t have the software to make a smaller file. So you can probably access it; it’s just huge so it’s taking forever. The good news is that I now have a much smaller Final Review file, with a slightly annoying watermark at the bottom of each page.

Do people really check their RamCT email every day? I never get RamCT messages and it’s a pain in the patooti to check. Am I missing something?

Yep. You can have your RamCT email forwarded to your personal email address. I highly recommend it; then you don’t have to check your RamCT email. Here’s how to do it:
* In the upper right corner of RamCT, click on “My Settings.”
* Check the email address listed; that’s where RamCT email will be forwarded.
* Click on the “My Tool Options” tab.
* Scroll down to the “Mail” section, then check the box next to “Forward all mail messages…”
* Scroll to the bottom and click the “Save” button.

My brain is going to explode. Do you have any advice for cramming all this information in there?

Small chunks. Rather than looking over all your notes every time you study, you might try learning one little section really really well. For example, spend twenty minutes learning only about, say, primates. Small chunks are a lot less daunting than looking over everything at once.

Take it a step further and get a little silly. Make up songs about primates. Go get yourself a cup of coffee/tea/hot chocolate and draw little primates on your napkin. Think up primate slogans for the awesome primate t-shirt you’re going to make. The more ridiculous something is, and the more vividly you can picture that ridiculous thing in your head, the easier it is to remember.

Also, deep calming breaths.

GOOD LUCK!

Characteristics and Sign Crossword

Caveat: may contain errors; I have yet to proofread it.

Two files… the first is all on one giant page, the other is broken into smaller pages for printing (choose the shrink to fit printer margins option).

Classification One Page
Classification Multi Page

http://flashcarddb.com/csumammalogy

Caveat: there’s a mere 1,082 flashcards total, so it’s possible I made a mistake somewhere!

Click here to view the embedded video.

And technically, it’s not “also known as the manateeeeeeee.”