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UP NEXT from the Tricksy Taxonomy division: No.1 seed Dugong (Dugong dugon) Vs. No 3 seed Mountain Tapir (Tapirus pinchaque) #2021MMM 
Tonight's battle is a team effort with genetics tweets by @sexchrlab and battle narration by @MarcKissel, @TanisBP, and me! #2021MMM
While Mountain Tapirs are "precariously balanced on the edge of extinction's precipice" they also play a critical role in the ecosystem, both as seed dispersers & since they topple trees that open paths for other herbivores (Padilla et al 2010, bit.ly/3dblHbW) #2021MMM
UP NEXT: #1 seed Dugong vs #12 seed Egyptian Fruit Bat, featuring #TricksyTaxonomy tweets from @StoneLab_ASU and @sexchrlab! #2021MMM
The Dugong has floated through the past two rounds, mostly busy making sure it gets its several hundred square meals a day. The Egyptian Fruit Bat (EFB) surprised everyone in an early upset before defeating the Solenodon in a well-timed figfall #FigGate #2021MMM
Taxonomic relationships within the fruit bats (Pteropodidae) are also tricksy but combining mtDNA & nuclear DNA shows that Egyptian fruit bat is closest to the Malagasy & Comoros fruit bats diverging from them ~2.3 MYA (Almeida et al 2016, bit.ly/FruitBatGen) #2021MMM
