March Mammal Madness is an alternate March Madness tournament focusing on simulated combat between organisms of all kinds, despite the name. Katie Hinde created March Mammal Madness, using a 64-animal bracket, with the goal of using biological research to create (simulated) battles.[2]
Katie Hinde, originally an assistant professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University[3] and currently an associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University,[4] later brought in three other educators to help her organize the event. This includes assistant professor at Boston University School of Medicine Kristi Lewton, a lecturer at State University of New York Joshua Drew, and assistant professor at Dominican University Christopher Anderson.[5] Along with these educators, a team of artists led by Charon Henning provides artwork of the various mammal competitors throughout the tournament.[3] Together, they research all of the combatants, using what they learned to provide entertainment and information.[2]
In 2017, more educators were added on to the March Mammal Madness team to help. This includes Ph.D. student at the University of Notre Dame Mauna Dasari, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Notre Dame Marc Kissel, post-doctoral researcher and instructor at the University of Utah Patrice Kur genetics, genomics, and the phylogeny of the various mammals participating. This includes Anne Stone of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, and Melissa Wilson Sayres from the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University.[6]
Bracket
The bracket itself is modeled after the NCAA championship, including an Elite Eight and a Final Four. The bracket is divided into four divisions, which change yearly.[7] The 64 animals are chosen and put into the various divisions based on their characteristics. In the 2015 bracket, the chosen divisions were Mighty Mini Mammals, Mythical Mammals, Critically Endangered Mammals, and Sexy Beasts. Mammals such as the dwarf mongoose and the Java mouse-deer were chosen for the Mighty Mini Mammals, while legendary beasts such as Ratatoskr and the Yeti battled it out in the Mythical Mammals.[3] The mammals compete against others in their division, eventually working their way down to the Final Four (one from each division), and finally the championship.
Battles
The battles are decided by a mix of scientific research and chance. Katie Hinde and the March Mammal Madness organizing team do in-depth research on the contestants. Temperament, diet, social behavior, environment, size, and fight style are just a few of the factors taken into consideration.[7] After these factors are weighed against each other, the team determines probability of one animal defeating another. This is how they develop the seed, or rank, of each animal. Then a 100 sided die is rolled with a determined percentage numbers attributed to each animal. This adds an element of chance, since in sport nothing is guaranteed. Additionally, the environment in which the encounter takes place can be a major factor in the outcome. For the first few rounds, each fight takes place in the environment of the higher seeded animal. After the Sweet Sixteen, it is chosen at random and announced immediately prior to the encounter.[8]
Combining research with an element of chance has led to some major upsets, just like like in real life. In round one of the 2015 Mighty Mini Mammal division, the 14th-seeded numbat defeated the 3rd-seed quokka. The research is then used to create a narrative to explain the loss.[8] The narratives can range from a serious battle, to humorous happenstance. In 2014, research showed the pangolin to be the most trafficked animal on the planet. Before the match even began, the pangolin was captured by poachers and shipped away, forfeiting the fight.[9] Each round has a scheduled day and time, found on Arizona State's March Mammal Madness blog.[9]
Instead of just announcing the winners, the written narratives are live-tweeted as if the match was happening in real time. Fans can follow along and tweet back using the designated March Mammal Madness hashtag, creating a fun and exciting atmosphere where people can learn about the animals they support.[7] The creators use a combination of gamification, social media, and narrative in an attempt to make scientific research more accessible. As of 2019, approximately 1100 scholarly works have been represented by March Mammal Madness, which reached about 1% of all high school students in the United States.[10]
In 2017, the wildcard match was performed as a live-action movie to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the tournament. The wildcard match was also done with four mammal competitors instead of the usual two. Members of the March Mammal Madness team dressed up as the competing mammals and acted out the battle in front of a green screen. The battle was then edited together and the final video was tweeted out during the first day of the 2017 March Mammal Madness season.[6]
In 2018, brief summaries of the battles in the style of sports reporting were added, providing for a short recap of each encounter.[11]
All tables begin with round two, after the first elimination. The animals' seed number is in parentheses (after round 2 only). If no animals advanced the cell is grey, if the animal was the champion the cell is gold.[9][12]
2013
Divisions: Carnivores, Primates, Grazers and Browsers, and Hodge Podge
Divisions: Cold-Adapted Mammals, Mighty Giants, Mammal Mascots, and Mammals of the Nouns. For the mascot mammal bracket, the university and the mammal the mascot represents are linked separately.[1]
In 2018, the tardigrade advanced several rounds without winning. In the When the Kat's Away division, the anaconda didn't see it, but was the official winner. The tardigrade continued to ride each winning animal, thus becoming an "alt-champion".
2019
Divisions: Jump Jump, Waterfalls, Tag Team, and CAT-e-Gory
Mammalia is a class of animal within the phylum Chordata. Mammal classification has been through several iterations since Carl Linnaeus initially defined the class. No classification system is universally accepted; McKenna & Bell (1997) and Wilson & Reader (2005) provide useful recent compendiums. Many earlier ideas from Linnaeus et al. have been completely abandoned by modern taxonomists, among these are the idea that bats are related to birds or that humans represent a group outside of other living things. Competing ideas about the relationships of mammal orders do persist and are currently in development. Most significantly in recent years, cladistic thinking has led to an effort to ensure that all taxonomic designations represent monophyletic groups. The field has also seen a recent surge in interest and modification due to the results of molecular phylogenetics.
The Mammalia in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae forms one of six classes of animals in Carl Linnaeus's tenth reformed edition written in Latin. The following explanations are based on William Turton's translations who rearranged and corrected earlier editions published by Johann Friedrich Gmelin, Johan Christian Fabricius and Carl Ludwig Willdenow:
Animals that suckle their young by means of lactiferous teats. In external and internal structure they resemble man: most of them are quadrupeds; and with man, their natural enemy, inhabit the surface of the Earth. The largest, though fewest in number, inhabit the ocean.
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