{"id":473,"date":"2017-03-17T17:58:08","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T17:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/?p=473"},"modified":"2020-12-28T18:49:43","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T18:49:43","slug":"march-mammal-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/march-mammal-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"March Mammal Madness…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mmm2017launchcircus\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For this blog entry I wanted to discuss an interesting \u2018Science-Twitter\u2019 phenomenon called March Mammal Madness<\/a>. While this is the fifth annual event, this is the first year I\u2019ve participated and I couldn\u2019t be happier to share this event with other wildlife enthusiasts!<\/p>\n

March Mammal Madness (MMM) is curated by some clever folks at Arizona State University<\/a> and is an ode to the American NCAA College Basketball March Madness Championship Tournament, where 64 college basketball teams compete for the championship.<\/p>\n

MMM borrows many of the same characteristics as the original basketball tournament, but it is simulated. Each species is assigned scores based on a range of biological attributes, such as behaviour, weaponry, armor, body size, speed, and physiology, all of which are determined from the scientific literature. Combats between species are then simulated and a computer algorithm determines the outcome based on the attributes of the species involved and the habitat in which the battle takes place. It\u2019s as simple as that! For additional information and details, you can check out the blog here<\/a>. As is the case for the basketball tournament, all you need to do is fill in a bracket. While some people invest significant research time into each pick, it\u2019s just as easy to pick your favorite mammals and hope for the best! While hard-core sports fans select winners in their March Madness brackets and tune in to watch their favorite basketball teams play sports-ball (as we call it in my house), the Science-Twitter-verse is having some fun with MMM!<\/p>\n

The first matchup was a play-in game between \u2018wild-card\u2019 mammals, and happened on March 6 amid building excitement! It was a heated battle between the fisher<\/a>, snow leopard<\/a>, rhesus macaque<\/a>, and red giant flying squirrel<\/a>. I picked the fisher to win, because they are widespread across boreal North America and have a reputation for being vicious creatures. Alas, I guessed wrong. The red giant flying squirrel out-competed the field in a heated battle<\/a>, as the snow leopard came close, but succumbed to the overwhelming heat and humidity of the tropical rain forest where the battle took place.<\/p>\n

After the play-in game was decided, the brackets were officially set: four brackets, each with eight mammal-on-mammal matchups. While the mammals could be randomly chosen and assigned to brackets, the curators of MMM place mammals into categories ranging from biologically relevant, to silly and imaginative. This year, the bracket themes are:<\/p>\n