I'm not sure what my favorite animal is. Let's decide it by a market! This March Mammal Madness inspired game will play out in phases. Aside from the Setup phase, expect each phase to last about a day or two, but I reserve the right to speed up the clock as I deem fit.
Setup phase:
Traders add animals to the market. After the setup phase is complete, traders will no longer be able to add animals to the market. Expect this phase to end some point after this other market resolves. Traders can add as many eligible animals as they wish to the market. To be eligible, add a real, non-microscopic, non-Homo-genus animal by following the provided formatting:
[common name] - [scientific name]
Example: Goldfish - Carassius auratus
A subspecies can be specified, but new animals must have a unique genus + species compares to all other animals already listed.
Selection phase:
The animal with the highest probability (the “Frontrunner”) and the lowest probability (the “Underdog”) will be selected to do battle. I will declare when the approximate cutoff time for when this selection is.
Discussion phase:
Traders can convince me why an animal should win the match up. DO NOT paste an AI / LLM output in the comments. However, I might read an AI / LLM conversation if you paste a link to it.
Battle phase:
The selected animals will appear on “The Field of Battle” in my imagination, but the animals won't necessarily feel that they are supposed to fight each other. At the very least, one should notice the other one.
By default, “The Field of Battle” will be the native habitat of the “Underdog”, and the boundaries of "The Field of Battle" will vary at my discretion. If the probabilities were miraculously a tie, the default habitat would be decided by a coin toss. Other animals may also be present as part of the habitat.
An animal wins the battle if they are last to be incapacitated, or if they are last to be capable of moving (for approximately 10 seconds), or if the other contender flees “The Field of Battle”. I myself will be the sole judge of how this plays out.
If the result doesn't seem manifestly obvious to me, I will use these attributes to guide my decision: temperament, weaponry, armor, body mass, speed, fight style, physiology, and motivation, all relative to the battle's habitat.
I will not take kindly to bribes. Don't even try.
I expect many matches to end by asphyxiation or by an animal wandering off. They won't know where the boundaries are, and they won't know they are in a tournament. They just want to survive and thrive.
Clarification comment on handling lifecycle morphology and parasitism.
If an animal loses a battle, it will be marked as "defeated". If an animal wins a battle, that animal will continue on in the tournament, and that animal will have its memory wiped of the battle. We loop back to the Selection phase after a Battle phase if we're not at the last animal. The last animal on the market that isn't defeated and isn't ineligible resolves YES. All others, NO. "Other" will not resolve YES, but it may be a useful answer during the Setup phase. I cannot resolve market answers until the game is over.
I will award at least 100 mana to the person who adds the animal that wins this tournament. I guarantee no refund of your mana if you add an ineligible animal.
Medals:
🥉: Battles won as Underdog
🥈: Battles won as Frontrunner
🥇: Won a battle while 10 or fewer animals remain. (This is awarded instead of a bronze or silver medal.)
Dashboard to derivative markets
There will be no AI clarifications added to this market's description.
I will not trade on this market.
The close date is a placeholder and has no bearing on this market.
This will be a very subjective market. Expect that something will be scuffed, and I will have to fix things on the fly.
1,000Pessoas também estão operando
Discussion phase #52!
@prismatic with the Frontrunner
Tiger - Panthera tigris
Vs.
@solarflare with the Underdog
Sulfur Cave Molly - Poecilia sulphuraria
Discuss! (And tell me if the ping notification worked this time. I manually typed everything in from scratch this time.)
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@wolf @Bayesian @GazDownright @digory @moobunny @TheAllMemeingEye @Gen @121 @100Anonymous @vi
Discussion phase #52!
@prismatic with the Frontrunner
Tiger - Panthera tigris
Vs.
@solarflare with the Underdog
Sulfur Cave Molly - Poecilia sulphuraria
Discuss! (And tell me if the ping notification worked this time. I manually typed everything in from scratch this time.)
---Subscription pings---
@wolf @Bayesian @GazDownright @digory @moobunny @TheAllMemeingEye @Gen @121 @100Anonymous @vi
Discussion phase #51!
@samoel with the Frontrunner
Meerkat - Suricata suricatta
Vs.
@moobunny with the Underdog
Yellow-Lipped Sea Krait - Laticauda colubrina
Discuss!
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@wolf @Bayesian @GazDownright @digory @moobunny @TheAllMemeingEye @Gen @121 @100Anonymous @vi
@Quroe Oh I missed this! I’ll make a post in defense of the sea krait later. Spoiler: the “sea” part will figure heavily.
@moobunny I also haven’t been getting notifications for this recently, I’ve checked manually a few times here and found a post with no notification
@Gen Okay, this is interesting. Multiple users are coming forth with this experience. I am using the same pinging method and making sure to use the menu that pops up when I pull an @ handle. Any ideas on what might be happening?
@Quroe Let’s start off with some Steve Irwin! There’s a sea krait at the start of this clip: https://youtu.be/dXKit_DCgMY?si=bkKwjLe7bIYNtD7m
As you can see they are totally at home in the ocean. They are highly venomous, though that clip suggests they might not use it on a meerkat unless they were attacked or they wanted to eat it, and as far as I can tell a meerkat is likely a little big to be easy prey for a sea krait.
Wikipedia helpfully provides us with a video of a sea krait absolutely horking down a small moray eel.
File:Sea Snake eating Moray Eel, Fiji (Laticauda colubrina vs. Gymnothorax sp.).webm - Wikipedia
When hunting, yellow-lipped sea kraits frequently head into deep water far from land, but return to land to digest meals, shed skin, and reproduce.
So it should be reasonable to find our sea krait in deep water far from land, which would be my preference for the field of battle. Unless…
Each year during the warmer months of September through December, males gather on land and in the water around gently sloping areas at high tide [to mate].
It seems they return to land seasonally to mate. I’m not sure if they can also be found in deep water hunting during those months, but fortunately it’s not mating season currently.
I think this one mostly comes down to the field of battle.
Battle phase #51!
@samoel with the Frontrunner
Meerkat - Suricata suricatta
Vs.
@moobunny with the Underdog
Yellow-Lipped Sea Krait - Laticauda colubrina
Habitat: A coral reef
The meerkat finds itself underwater around a coral reef. A sea krait winding through the ocean notices a furry animal floating in the current.
This meerkat breathes in much the same way a submarining billionaire doesn't. The meerkat's lungs suddenly get very, very wet -- leading to death by drowning.
The curious sea krait gets a fairly easy meal. Sea krait wins!
---Places I went for research---
See previous meerkat research here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-lipped_sea_krait
The video that was linked above by @moobunny from this article is a great example of feeding behavior.
Judging by the shadows of the sea krait in the video, I suspect the lighting source is not from the diver, or at least, is not only from the diver. I believe this animal lives in the photic zone, where light can still reach. We'll say it's about 200m deep max based on the picture in the wikipedia wrticle I'm hyperlinking here.
Semiaquatic. Can move on sea and land.
"When hunting, yellow-lipped sea kraits frequently head into deep water far from land, but return to land to digest meals, shed skin, and reproduce."
Do you have a particular time of year you reproduce in...?
Yup, September through December.
https://youtu.be/dXKit_DCgMY?si=bkKwjLe7bIYNtD7m
Won't bite a human. I suspect this means that the venom is only meant for prey already stuck in its mouth.
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@wolf @Bayesian @GazDownright @digory @moobunny @TheAllMemeingEye @Gen @121 @100Anonymous @vi
@Gen @wasabipesto I'm not sure what's going on here. The notifications seem borked for people. Any ideas?
@Quroe I just had a look through my emails, and the least I can see is for discussion phase #46. I wonder if I stopped getting them as I missed that one somehow and didn't click on it.
I guess I had a lot of manifold emails, and it got caught up in the less fun ones.
Discussion phase #50!
@vi with the Frontrunner
Western lowland gorilla - Gorilla gorilla gorilla
Vs.
@JussiVilleHeiskanen with the Underdog
Brownthroated three-toed sloth - Bradypus variegatus
Discuss!
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@wolf @Bayesian @GazDownright @digory @moobunny @TheAllMemeingEye @Gen @121 @100Anonymous @vi
Battle phase #50!
@vi with the Frontrunner
Western lowland gorilla - Gorilla gorilla gorilla
Vs.
@JussiVilleHeiskanen with the Underdog
Brownthroated three-toed sloth - Bradypus variegatus
Habitat: A forest canopy
The gorilla finds itself in the branches of a forest canopy. All things considered, this is pretty normal for it! Alongside it is a sloth, just hanging out with it.
The gorilla chirps a squeak of acknowledgement at the sloth, communicating that it notices its presence. The sloth stares blankly and derpily back at it.
The gorilla swings to another branch. In doing so, the branch they shared is jostled, and the sloth, having virtually no reflex speed, is shaken off of its grip. It plummets to the forest floor.
Thud. Gorilla wins!
This paragraph I write before writing the encounter. This is possibly one of the most evenly footed they-don't-care-about-each-other pairings on this list. They can both be in trees or on the ground. They are both peaceful. They will simply tolerate each other! I guess we go to a tiebreaker breakdown.
Temperament:
Tie. They're all chill.
Weaponry:
Tie. Again. They're chill.
Armor:
Tie. They are both equally fleshy.
Body mass:
Favors Gorilla gorilla gorilla. But only barely.
Speed:
Favors Gorilla gorilla gorilla. Versus a sloth? Duh.
Fight style:
Tie. They're chill.
Physiology:
Tie. They can both handle trees and the forest floor.
This is an automatic win for the gorilla.
---Places I went for research---
See previous gorilla and sloth research here and here, respectively.
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@wolf @Bayesian @GazDownright @digory @moobunny @TheAllMemeingEye @Gen @121 @100Anonymous @vi
Discussion phase #49!
@prismatic with the Frontrunner
Cat - Felis catus
Vs.
@samoel with the Underdog
Meerkat - Suricata suricatta
I see what you all did here. Love it. Discuss!
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@wolf @Bayesian @GazDownright @digory @moobunny @TheAllMemeingEye @Gen @121 @100Anonymous @vi
Battle phase #49!
@prismatic with the Frontrunner
Cat - Felis catus
Vs.
@samoel with the Underdog
Meerkat - Suricata suricatta
Habitat: The same rock crevaced landscape in a stony, calcareous area
Our cat stalks around the habitat of the meerkats. The meerkats, always on guard, notice the cat approaching from afar! Our championed meerkat sounds the ground-threat alarm.
The cat, knowing its cover is blown, continues to size up its prey. The meerkats are something in its size range that it would try to fight and kill, but the meerkats probably can't take down a cat. They are on the defensive.
The meerkats are territorial. They group up much like how they grouped on on the snake in this video, and gang up on the cat in sheer number.
The cat, prefering to stalk prey that is alone and weak, disengages and wanders elsewhere to spend its energy on something a little more helpless and weak. The meerkats have defended their home.
The meerkat wins!
---Places I went for research---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltYxFlMlYqI
Cats can mimic bird sounds?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r54MF5O55Eg
Meerkats seem to only hunt little things. A cat is something the probably wouldn't try to beat.
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@wolf @Bayesian @GazDownright @digory @moobunny @TheAllMemeingEye @Gen @121 @100Anonymous @vi
@Quroe That cat mimicking bird sounds is pretty cool! I had no idea they could do that!