The best part of the year is coming soon! March Mammal Madness is a public science event in which a group of bio profs and grad students run a “who would win in a fight” March Madness style contest with (mostly) mammals.
The mammals do a sort of battle in a live narration that goes down on Twitter. (You can also follow on Facebook, though the action is really on Twitter.) There’s a strong D&D vibe as they narrate the encounter, conflict, and resolution (which doesn’t always involve violence). Instead of citing the rule books, they cite papers to describe behaviors, etc.
The bracket has 64 (mostly) mammals, except over the years more non-mammals have joined the brackets, and there often is a mythological creature as well. 2015 had a mythological monsters bracket that resulted in a werewolf biting a yeti, creating the were-yeti.
Filling out the bracket is always interesting. They pick out interesting and weird species like Thalassocnus, the sea sloths to research, and since the folks running MMM are science educators they share knowledge about their behaviors, habitats, and related things. In previous events we learned interesting things about mouse deer, pygmy hippos, tenrecs, African crested porcupines, et al, and this year will surely have many interesting species.
In the tweet above, check the whole thread, follow the accounts listed, and on the dates listed you can see what’s going on with the amazing world of Twitter science games which are both educational and fun, and which will be revealing #2020MMM combatants. We esp like #TrickyBirdId which often really is really pretty tricky, though you can always guess red-tailed hawk and have a 10% chance. And tonight they’ll be revealing three combatants.
Follow Katie Hinde on Twitter and check there for the latest updates, and check this blog post to find other updates and the bracket when it’s available.
http://mammalssuck.blogspot.com/2020/02/march-mammal-madness-2020.html
Also watch the #2020MMM hashtag as March rolls along.
The event brings in a lot of SciComm folks on Twitter, and the fans with their mix of fan art, trash talk, interesting facts, and banter add a lot of fun to MMM.
Stoats as a Measure also looms large – we even made a comic on the topic.
Follow @radiationmouth, @NatickBobcat, @little_jems, @PPricklepants, and keep an eye on whatever accounts crop up related to combatants. @teamBatToilet was cracking us up last year.
The Nature Bloggist 