Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #FigGate
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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
UP NEXT: #12 Egyptian Fruit Bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus) vs #13 Solendon (Solenodon paradoxus) #2021MMM
In Round 1, our Solenodon avoided being a Civet treat while on holiday in Madagascar, while the Egyptian Fruit Bat (EFB) outlasted a socially-motivated Kinda Baboon #UpsetCity #2021MMM
NEXT UP: No.5 seed Red Brocket (Mazama americana) vs No. 12 seed Siberian Weasel (Mustela sibirica) #2021MMM
GET THIS: Red Brocket is RED! This South American deer species is reddish-brown in coloration across most of its body, perfect for camouflage in dense, tropical forests #2021MMM
Red Brockets are the biggest of the Mazama cervids. Our male Red Brocket is ~4.3 stoats long (145 cm) & he's dense weighing in at 30 kg (136 stoats) #StoatsAsMeasurement #2021MMM
FIRST UP: #2 SEED FLORIDA PANTHER (PUMA CONCOLOR CORYI) VERSUS AMPHIBIAN CHYTRID FUNGUS (BATRACHOCHYTRIUM DENDROBATIDIS) Photos: @FWS & Rob O’ Sullivan #2020MMM
Whether you call it a panther, puma, cougar, or mountain lion - Puma concolor means lion-of-one-color. Panthers are shades of tan, coryi subsp. is darker brown to rust & kittens are gray w/ dark brown/blackish spots & five bands around the tail. fws.gov/refuge/florida… #2020MMM
Mountain lions are one of the most widespread felids in the Americas. Rangewide @IUCN ranks them as Least Concern but the coryi subspecies has been listed by @USFWS as an endangered species since 1967. fws.gov/refuge/florida… #2020MMM
