Warm-blooded, furry (or secondarily hairless) Terragen animals that suckle their young. Together with birds they have been the most successful form of Terragen land vertebrate life during the Cenozoic era, though they had a long prior history in the preceding Mesozoic as well. The clade includes hominids, apes, bats, cats, dogs, dolphins and whales, rodents, ungulates, and many other well known groups. Baseline or gengineered subsophont mammals are particularly easy and popular to provolve because of their often sociable nature, their long nurturing period and their large brains.
It might be said that all sophont Terragens are in some sense descended from mammals, since baseline humans are mammals and humans have rise to the cultures and technologies that made all the other clades possible.
- Anthropoid Ape - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Terragen great apes, specifically baseline (non-provolved) types.
- Ape, Great - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Old term for the primate family Pongidae. Includes the gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans. All are presophont. All the species of Pongids were provolved during the Information and early Interplanetary Ages.
- Cat, Domestic
- Gibbon and Siamang
- Hominid - Text by M. Alan Kazlev; additions by Stephen Inniss
An informal term for the most human-like primates, the bipedal apes, as opposed to apes in general. They are similar to other advanced primates in terms of their genetic makeup and are distinguished culturally (most markedly in Homo sapiens) by their more extensive creation of technology, including art and language. They also have certain common physiological traits such as hairlessness, erect posture, and fine manipulation (precision grip). Human baselines were the only surviving members of this group on Old Earth prior to various lazurogenic efforts.
- Rodent - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Order of usually small Terragen gnawing mammals, mostly herbivorous, distinguished by enlarged front incisors and a lack of canine teeth. Includes rats, mice, hamsters, squirrels, voles, beavers and many other species. The most diverse of all Terragen mammals, some rodents have proved extremely adaptable and accompanied baseline humans into space during the Interplanetary period. Others however are very vulnerable to new conditions and require biohabitats that reproduce their original environment. Rodents are a popular subject for gengineeers and rodent variants often prove to be popular pets.
- Ungulate - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
General term for terragen hoofed, herbivorous, placental mammals. The hoof is made of the protein keratin. Representative baseline ungulates include horses, sheep, pigs, deer, camels, bovids, and many other species. Many ungulate species have been provolved, others have been raised to presophonce, or geneered or adapted in various ways.