Focus on Rodents: New Virtual Science Cafe Feature

I was recently able to introduce myself as the new Research Curator of Mammalogy for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in a recent virtual Science Cafe hosted by Chris Smith of the museum. Whereas you can see I study a broad array of mammals, I wanted to use this opportunity to share my love of one group that is often overlooked and underappreciated: the rodents! It was a lot of fun discussing the incredible diversity of this taxa with over 2500 species - the most of all mammals! It gave me the opportunity to talk about some of my personal favorites, including American beavers that have made a huge nationwide comeback and are restoring wetland habitats as ecosystem engineers, Central American agoutis that provide critical scatter-hoarding services to plant the seeds of the giant Alemendro trees that are critical for nesting great green macaws, and the pacas that are a uniquely large striped forest rodent of the Neotropics. Of course, then I had to discuss my favorite rodents: the woodrats! I explained that the name rat is a misnomer and then shared my stories about the importance of the Key Largo woodrat as a seed disperser and ultimate composter that are working to naturally restore the endangered forests of the Florida Keys. Check out the video here for more of the cool details, as well as awesome questions from the virtual live audience, and stay tuned for more videos and blog posts as I expand my content here in the near future!