Stop! Collaborate and listen!
It is time for the tag-team battles to begin. Let's get ready to rumble in March Mammal Madness!
The tag-team division is all about mutualism - or, as one of our narrators has termed it,
Mutualism with pugilism! The crab and sea turtle team met the clownfish and sea anenome in the Sargasso Sea.
The clownfish was startled and dove into the anemone for shelter. The anemone...
...promptly began to sink into the depths of the sea. The clownfish cannot survive in deep water, and didn't know what to do.
Should it stay with its tag-team partner, or should it save its own skin?
In the end, the clownfish chose to stay with its partner, and the crab and turtle watched them disappear into the inky depths.
The crab and sea turtle team wins!
Our next battle took place in Kenya, where it was hot - 30 degrees Celsius hot.
The warthog laid down in the shade,
and a troop of mongooses came over to pick off bugs and other tasty treats from the warthog.
One mongoose looked down and saw a strange beetle on the ground.
It was the burying beetle, covered in mites, looking for a cool place. The mongoose chomped! The beetle cracked!
The mites scattered! But they were no match for the nimble mongoose. Team WarGoose is the winner!
Hey, MC! I'm reporting from Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado, where our coyote badger team met up to hunt...
...ground squirrels. What is up with this year's rampant rodent eating?!?
Anyway, while the badger was digging, the coyote flopped down near some fireweed and noticed some aphids crawling around on the stems.
So he started in on the aphid appetizers!
But the ants swarmed to the aphids' rescue, and they moved them to a nest underground.
Unfortunately, the ground squirrel was also underground, in a burrow nearby. Mass carnage ensued.
It was terrible. The coyote and the badger devoured the ants, the aphids, and the innocent bystander squirrel,
and they move on.
(Gluttons.)
Picture, if you will, a coral reef in Fiji.
An eel lounged about, getting cleaned by the wrasse, when it accidentally brushed up against the fire coral.
[dramatic music]
A comedy of errors promptly ensued.
The eel jerked away in pain! Another fish crashed into the fire coral, revealing an even smaller fish underneath.
The eel recovered enough to chomp the smaller fish,
but the fire coral and the algae were damaged beyond repair in the melee.
In a swirl of confusion, the wrasse and the moray eel advance!
Hi MC! I'm in the Brazilian wetlands, home to the capybara and the wattled jacana.
The drongo and the weaver were teleported here
straight from the African savanna, and they were really nervous.
They watched the capybara stroll towards them through the water with the jacana riding on top of its head.
And then the drongo spotted an anaconda that was also in the water, and it freaked out!
It sounded the alarm, and both birds zipped off to safety. The capybara and the jacana just kept on walking,
straight on to victory. The capybara and the jacana win!
In one corner, we have the oxpecker,
Keeping the zebra free from ticks. A simple combo. In the other corner. We have the gammaproteobacteria,
living inside the milk glands of the batfly, which, in turn, usually lives on a bat.
Got all that?
Okay. The bat fly was transported to the hot African savanna.
Was that dark stripe of the zebra a safe place?
I believe we all know the answer already.
In an instant, the oxpecker disposes of the batfly, and moves onward with its tag team partner.
The strange mutualism between the Borneo bat and the pitcher plant has inspired a Twitter account and
team nickname of
#TeamBatToilet.
Our dynamic duo saw the TeamBatToilet signal...
[Batman theme + flushing sound]
...and they were zapped to Tai National Park of Ivory Coast.
But the team became separated in the process.
While the bat flitted about, searching for its companion, the pitcher plant was rooted to the spot.
Meanwhile, a group of red colobus monkeys heard approaching chimpanzees, and hurried toward a group of Diana monkeys
for safety in numbers.
The simian squad all fled together to safer ground...
...and trampled the helpless pitcher plant.
Good luck, bat, wherever you are. The red colobus and the Diana monkey win! ("Funky like a monkey, sky's the limit!")
Folks, we try our best to summarize these battles for you.
But the encounter between the aardvark team and this monkey trio was described in a most epic fashion, a la Beastie Boys.
We cannot do it justice, and we encourage you, as always, to go straight to Twitter for the full details.
In short, our trio of monkeys went on a midnight run. They ran into our aardvark duo,
they had quite a scrap, and the aardvark's toughness sent the Triple Trouble Team running off into the night,
looking for their right to party somewhere else.
The aardvark and its cucumber sidekick win!
And so ends the first round of division battles. What adventures await the winners?
Join us on Thursday, when the second round begins. I am MC Marmot,
and this has been March Mammal Madness. Thank you.
Yeah, word to your mammals!