Thread by @c_n_anderson

Our third battle of the night was written by @Drew_Lab , but I'm guest tweeting for him tonight #2018MMM

We're now going to look at the #3 seed Crabeater seal and the 14 seed the Edible doormouse #2018MMM

The Crabeater seal is a large seal found across the Southern Ocean, spending their lives on pack ice #2018MMM

Despite the name, the crabeater seal doesn't actually eat crabs. Rather it uses its highly specalized teeth to filter another crustacean, krill, from the water #2018MMM

Because of that they have HIGHLY specalized dentition. They have so many teeth, their teeth have teeth flickr.com/photos/fieldmu… Photo from @Fieldmuseum

Friend of #2018MMM @Ehmee and the late Bill Stanley actually have a nice video about that wild skull here (at the 4:00 mark)

But the reason behind those wild teeth is that crabeater seals trying to solve the same problem Blue whales do with baleen or whale sharks do with gill rakers - how to filter out krill #2018MMM

So the seal will take a mouthful of water and krill and then squeeze it out. The krill remained trapped behind those crazy teeth #2018MMM

Speaking of eating, let's meet our other contestant, the edible dormouse #2018MMM

I mean, when you basically have the word snack in your name, you're bound to be my favorite contestant of the season #2018MMM

The edible in their name, comes from the fact that they were actually a snack during Roman times and this tradition lives on in modern Slovokia #2018MMM

The awesome @SarahEBond has written about the archaeology of edible dormice (bit.ly/2oVQu4u), including the proto-hamster cages, called gliraria, where they were fattened up #2018MMM

The edible doormouse, is the only member of its genus Glis (hence we call it monotypic) and that's the root of the roman snack containers gliraria #2018MMM

According to the Romans you had two ways to serve dormice; Regular (glazed in honey and poppyseeds) or Chicago style (stuffed with pork, mouse trimmings pepper and other spices then roasted bit.ly/1SoZGGL #2018MMM

Anyway the free ranging snacks spend most of their time in oak and beech hardwood forests of Europe where their reproduction is tightly linked to the number of seeds produced bit.ly/2FvmPVZ (paywall, booo) #2018MMM

However since the Crabeater seal is the higher seed, we aren't in the grand beech forests of the Carpathian moutains (bit.ly/2vWqoiX) we are in the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean #2018MMM

And while they have adaptations for eating Krill, #poopsci suggests that crabeaters also eat other, and larger things, like fish bit.ly/2p1Lzhr #2018MMM

The crabeater decides that while regular and chicago style both sound delicious, sometimes you just have to go with a fresh snack... *burp* #2018MMM

CRABEATER SEAL DEFEATS EDIBLE DORMOUSE!!!! #2018MMM