May the teeth haunt your nightmares the way they haunt mine! Between this and the Frilled Shark last year, apparently my narrator specialty is dental horror? #2025MMM

ELITE TRAIT #2026MMM WINNERS:

Aurochs, Humpback Whale, Honey Badger and Nile Crocodile!

Please join us on MONDAY March 31st at 8PM EST for the FINAL ROAR!

#2026MMM ELITE TR8️⃣ EMOJI BATTLE

🦡🆚📿: 🪄🌳/🦡🙄🌳/🦡💥📿/
📿🙂‍↔️🔊/📿🫦🦡/🦡🤷🏻‍♂️🍽️📿/🏆🦡

🐮🆚🐂: 🚣🏼🏹🐮/🪄🏜️/🐮🐂🥵/
🏹🫀🩸/🐂➡️👥🐮/🐮☁️👀/🏆🐂

🐋🆚🦛: 🪄🪸/🦛🏊🏾🪨/🐟✂️🦛/
🐋🔊👶🏻/🦈🔜🦛🩸/🦈🍽️🦛/🏆🐋

🐊🆚🦁: 🪄🇺🇬/🦁🦁🏊‍♂️/🐊👂🦁/
🦁😱↩️/🐊🍽️🦵🏻🧫/🦁🦁👋🏻/🏆🐊

2017 was the second year I played, and this year I got to narrate a rematch in the Elite Traits... #MMMagic for real... #2026MMM

"Why did you burn down that Arby's, ma'am?"

"Dylan told me to."
#2026MMM

CROCODILE DE-FEETS LION!!!! #2026MMM

Doing that math was a highlight of my life.

Thanks I hate it. I perhaps hate the fact that 2011 is 15 YEARS AGO most of all...

it would be so hard going through the day if I were venomous the temptation to bite others would be so great #2026MMM

This made me spit out my drink with laughter.

The group who originally generated the draft Gila monster genome is now working a complete genome sequence for this wonderful creature, sequencing every base from telomere to telomere. #2026MMM #RIP

on a mottled blue background a honey badger curves towards the right it's head angled towards the viewer with jaws agape, with bright yellow rimlight on the right and cool silvery rimlight on the left

#2026MMM #EliteTrait #BoneyardDivision #TeamHoneyBadger Art by Olivia Pellicer @opellisms.bsky.social

uh, THATS SO METAL
#2026MMM

HONEY BADGER DEVOURS GILA MONSTER!!!! #2026MMM

With a crushing neck bite, Honey Badger slays Gila Monster, and chows down to finish the lizard entirely! (Begg et al 2003) #2026MMM

A close up of the lower jaw of a Gila monster showing replacement teeth growing in behind current teeth. There is a narrow groove visible on the surface of the tooth

HONEY BADGER STILL DON'T CARE because Gila Monster CAN NOT inject venom!!!! Gila Monster's venom oozes slowly down tooth grooves during prolonged feeding, this is why it 'hunts easy pickings' nestlings!!! (Mackessy 2022; Beck 2005) #2026MMM

A chart illustrating the evolutionary distance between Gila Monster and Cape Cobra, indicating that they last shared a common ancertor 161 million years ago

BUT GILA MONSTER LATCH BITES ONTO HONEY BADGER'S PAW!!!! Is Honey Badger resistant to the venom of the Gila Monster evolving 160 Million years since the last common ancestor with cape cobra?!?!!? #2026MMM

And this is the biggest "gecko" Honey Badger has ever encountered! With his fossorial claws Honey Badger prepares to DIG IN to dinner, flipping the lizard! #2026MMM

A honey badger bares its teeth standing on bare rocky and sandy soil

BUT HONEY BADGER DON'T CARE, HE IS ADAPTED WITH REPTILE VENOM RESISTENCE!!!! #IBeenTanglingCobraSinceYouWereAnEggBoi (Drabeck et al. 2015) #2026MMM

A gila monster stands amongst dead branches against red soil. It has a vibrant orange body and black splotches. Its mouth is slightly open, showing sharp teeth

Gila Monster's "phfhist" the open mouth teeth display, & the bright colors (aposematic coloration) warn that this lizard is locked & loaded with death-dealing venom! #2026MMM askabiologist.asu.edu/gila-monster...

An angry Gila Monster YouTube video by TheCrotalusfreak

Gila Monster whips his head toward Honey Badger with a threatening lizard hiss! #2026MMM (Sidebar: don't pester wildlife, if your presence is clearly disrupting them BACK OFF! youtu.be/OHPs_PdY65g?...

PHFFFFHIIIISSST!!! #2026MMM

Honey Badger looking up to the tree, nose NOT to the ground TRIPS OVER GILA MONSTER IN THE LEAF LITTER!! #2026MMM

A honey badger scales the rough-textured bark of a tree, digging in with long claws

Honey Badger considers the loose bark of the nearby gumtree... that could be a likley location for a delicious gecko, the Mighty Mustelid trots toward the tree trunk to begin a CLIMBING HUNT (Begg et al. 2003) #2026MMM

... and one out of place orange & black lizard... GILA MONSTER!!! #2026MMM

A eucalypt forest recovering from a fiew. The treest are dry and somewhat bare, with new green growth emerging from the ground

Trees continued to die from fire-damage for 2 years after the megafires, but the forest is recovering with eucalypt & acacia, coarse woody debris & leaf-litter again blanket the forest floor providing shade & concealment for Australia's spiders, snakes, & small mammals (Volkova et al 2025) #2026MMM

Honey Badger slows his trot, assailed by the scents of the dry Eucalypt forest dominated by Eucalyptus sieberi, this sclerophyll vegetation is adapted for periods of prolonged dryness and heat, but looks LUSH relative to Honey Badgers home habitat. #2026MMM

SPECIFICALLY, the Eucalypt Forests of Murramarang Nat'l Park, Australia, site of one of the 10,000 wildfires that burned across Australia during the 2019-2020 Black Summer, scorching 59 million acres (93,000 square miles; 2 TRILLION square stoats #StoatsAsMeasurement) (Volkova et al 2025) #2026MMM

when both combatants are MMMagically translocated to the randomly determined habitat of... EUCALYPT FOREST!!! #2026MMM

TONIGHT, Honey Badger is ON THE HUNT on the sandy thornveld of the Kalahari Desert (Begg 2001) while Gila Monster is RESTING amongst the saguaro of the Sonoran Desert (Gienger et al . 2014) after her HARROWING cliff experience in the Pyrennes in the Sweet Sixteen... #2026MMM