# Birds are mammals!!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birds-are-mammals/272126
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [October 31, 2004, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birds-are-mammals/272126 "2004-10-31T04:37:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2004, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birds-are-mammals/272126/81 "2004-11-02T21:32:28Z")
**Maureen** Sorry. My original argument was going to be “I could carry a fertilized chicken egg in my armpit until it hatched (the egg, not my armpit). This would not make me the mother.” But, that would have left me open to the valid counterargument “In nature, no species intentionally takes and incubates the eggs of another.” I wanted to use an example about a species of clam, but I couldn’t find my Gould book naming the species of clam or remember if it passed the fertilized eggs or immature larvae onto the gills of fish.
AFAIK, the seahorse eggs would develop just as well in any place that was the proper temperature and provided oxygenated water. The male’s pouch just provides a convenient storage space and nothing more. I do contend the embryo must develop into a form capable of survival in the environment (breathing air or water as appropriate, the ability to digest food) within the body of the egg producer for it to be defined as birth.
Considering that AFAIK seahorses do not produce milk, they are not mammals.
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### Author:  [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2004, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birds-are-mammals/272126/82 "2004-11-02T21:35:55Z")
> [@DocCathode](#):
>
> Considering that AFAIK seahorses do not produce milk, they are not mammals.
But birds are! 😉
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### Author:  [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2004, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birds-are-mammals/272126/83 "2004-11-02T21:39:43Z")
**TellMeI’mNotCrazy** , you’re right, it didn’t. But, I know squat about marine biology.
**DocCathode** , thanks for answering all my questions. As long as it doesn’t really matter where those eggs are hatched & they aren’t mammals, then I guess I’ll have to agree, the little guys don’t give birth. _sigh_…and here I was thinking that god really did believe in poetic justice…
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2004, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birds-are-mammals/272126/84 "2004-11-02T21:40:28Z")
Which brings us back to my first post. Please explain why or how birds are mammals.
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### Author:  [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2004, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birds-are-mammals/272126/85 "2004-11-02T21:56:42Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#):
>
> Which brings us back to my first post. Please explain why or how birds are mammals.
I’m just as eager to hear this as you are, provided the OP ever comes back.
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### Author:  [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2004, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birds-are-mammals/272126/86 "2004-11-03T12:07:55Z")
> [@DesertGeezer](#):
>
> Naw! Rverybody knows Rush Limbaugh is a reptile!
Then…Newt Gingrich must be a mammal too. Or a cephalopod. Or a gynoid.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2004, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birds-are-mammals/272126/87 "2004-11-03T15:28:50Z")
> [@Middlecase](#):
>
> Then…Newt Gingrich must be a mammal too. Or a cephalopod. Or a gynoid.
Naah…everybody knows Newts are amphibians – Order Salientia, IIRC. (Cf. Karel Capek’s history of American Politics in the 1990s, _The War Against the Newts_.)
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