Let's Talk About Moose (Ba-by)

Tune in to SciChat tonight to hear me talk about meeses.

Regular readers of the SORT OF FUNNY FIELD GUIDES newsletter already know that I’m obsessed with deer. But did you know moose are actually a kind of deer? In fact, moose are the largest deer species on earth! And yet, you probably still underestimate their heft.

Moose can weigh up to 1,500 pounds, which puts them on par with Kodiak bears, or the heaviest of all bears. Moose stand nearly 7 feet tall—at the shoulder! Heck, a moose’s antlers alone can sometimes weigh up to 75 pounds, which means their head gear outweighs my second grader by a good measure.

Anyway, this is all just scratching the surface of what moose are about, and lucky for you, I’m going to be digging deep into the meeses tonight on a live, free broadcast of SciChat! We’ll also talk about what it’s like being a science writer, weird stories from my field reporting, and of course, my new book, SORT OF FUNNY FIELD GUIDES (to be published by National Geographic Books in 2025).

To listen, all you need to do is click this link at 9 PM Eastern (Tuesday, May 30).

Huge, Scary-Looking Spider is Actually a Big Scaredy-Cat

Oh, and while I have you, check out the story I did last week for National Geographic News about the new-to-America Joro spider. The things are positively massive, brightly colored, and admittedly pretty scary-looking. Which is why it’s GREAT NEWS that a new study finds that Joro spiders are also the most shy spiders known to science. Enjoy!

Story here: “Turns out that huge spider invading the U.S. is incredibly ... shy?”