Jason GRIZZLED Bittel
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bittelmethis.bsky.social
Jason GRIZZLED Bittel
@bittelmethis.bsky.social
Wild animal & author of GRIZZLED (March 3, 2026). Science Writer @ Nat Geo, NYT, WashPo, etc. Prev: KSJ @ MIT, Nat Geo Explorers. He/him. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/804002/grizzled-by-jason-bittel/
Pinned
🐻GRIZZLED🐻: Love Letters to 50 of North America's Least Understood Animals

Def the biggest & most personal project of my career. Featuring artwork & foreword by Joel Sartore, as well as insights from a bajillion amazing scientists. 🧪

❤️‍🔥I HOPE YOU LOVE IT❤️‍🔥
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/804002...
Grizzled by Jason Bittel: 9781426223358 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
Funny, fascinating, and scientifically grounded, this charming book reveals unknown details about 50 well-known animals. Effortlessly readable, Grizzled reintroduces nature lovers to species they th...
www.penguinrandomhouse.com
Reposted by Jason GRIZZLED Bittel
look 👀
LOOK at the spider book 🕷️📘👀
gaze at its thoughtful features & reasonable price 💵🔍👀
$9.25 gets you everything you need to start spidering bookshop.org/p/books/spid...
need a more premium experience? i have a limited number of autographed copies available, each with a spider doodle; DM me
December 17, 2024 at 10:44 PM
TIL cranberries do actually have medicinal properties! Via Cassandra Quave's excellent newsletter --

open.substack.com/pub/naturesp...
Cranberries
A favorite Thanksgiving treat with some fascinating health benefits!
open.substack.com
November 26, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Jason GRIZZLED Bittel
Come and join our lab! We have TWO fully funded PhD positions AND a paid field assistant opportunity in our Behavioral Ecology group @uni-goettingen.de & @primatenzentrum.bsky.social. Projects will be part of @rtg2906-curiosity.bsky.social & @sfb1528.bsky.social!!
Details in thread. Please re-post!
November 25, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Woof. I've sat through these meetings with friends turned "financial representatives". Really glad someone finally wrote this piece. (That someone was Niamh Rowe for @theguardian.com.)

www.theguardian.com/business/202...
‘Friends end up blocking you’: Northwestern Mutual sold college grads a dream job. They left in ruin and debt
Expecting to be financial advisers at the Fortune 500 firm, some hires say they were ‘gaslit’ into peddling ‘terrible’ life insurance to all their contacts
www.theguardian.com
November 25, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Dare to be Stupid, by @alyankovic.bsky.social

The White Album, by The Beatles

What a combo!
Okay, who remembers the first cassette tape/CD they ever purchased? For me:

CD: Pink Floyd's The Wall
cassette: Styx's Kilroy Was Here
November 25, 2025 at 6:58 PM
The coffee isn't coffeeing.
November 25, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Captain & his crew become shipwrecked, relying on the flesh of mysterious sea beasts to survive the winter. But then the captain falls in love, studying the animals intently. And that fascination ultimately leads to the species' doom.

🧪

www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...
The 30-foot sea cow quickly hunted to extinction because of its tasty meat
Few complete skeletons remain of this gentle behemoth, who was destroyed by explorers and fur traders in the Arctic.
www.nationalgeographic.com
November 24, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Reposted by Jason GRIZZLED Bittel
Capybara's at dawn.
November 24, 2025 at 2:13 PM
NGL, I felt proud of my blue check on Twitter. I worked hard for it. Grinded for years, like playing a video game. And when it became worthless, it hurt. Anyway, just saw BlueSky is doing them now too. See if you qualify! 🧪
November 23, 2025 at 12:14 AM
Tie for Buffalo Bills stadium and the Greek countryside. 😆

Both illness, not alcohol. Not that we're judging here.
Off the upper deck of two decks of a snorkel/whale watching boat in Hawaii.

My dad was directly below and it landed on him.

Then we saw dozens of dolphins and magically I didn't need to puke anymore
what's the most exotic place you've ever puked? mine's not exactly exotic but i did once have a hangover at the nyc facebook office and barfed in their very nice bathroom
November 21, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Winter colors.
November 21, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Some fun local happenings!
November 21, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Gotta say, I've received many emails that read less human than this.
I never expected that AI would flood authors with scam emails from "private" "communities" of "readers." One of many examples from the past few weeks:
November 20, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Jason GRIZZLED Bittel
One of the benefits of the KSJ fellowship is access to our incredible community alumni!

Thanks @bittelmethis.bsky.social <3
The @ksjatmit.bsky.social program changed my life and ultimately helped shape the book I'm about to publish with National Geographic. And now they're looking for next year's fellows!

I cannot recommend this program enough. Happy to talk if you have questions! 🧪

ksj.mit.edu/news/2025/11...
KSJ Opens Application Cycle for 2026-27 Fellowships
Applications for KSJ's Academic-Year Fellowship and the Africa and Middle East Fellowship open November 15 and close January 9.
ksj.mit.edu
November 20, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Another fascinating 🧪🧵 by @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social!
One of the tragedies of growing up is it's apparently no longer "socially acceptable" to carry around a cool rock & show it to people you meet.

So I have to respect the Chinese, Korean & Japanese for having a tradition of finding cool rocks & displaying them.

Let's talk about scholar's stones.
November 20, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Reposted by Jason GRIZZLED Bittel
do not feed deer in winter!
It's that time of year! The time when deer guts start to undergo a magical transformation!

(Also the time of year many well-intentioned people accidentally mess the whole thing up, leading to dead deer!)

🧪

jasonbittel.substack.com/p/the-deer-t...
The Deer, They Are A-Changin'
Something magical is happening in your backyard.
jasonbittel.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Good thread on publishing here from @stephenbheard.bsky.social
If you're a book author looking to move from publishing with university presses to publishing with trade presses, I learned something today that seems important. Short thread.
1/9
November 19, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Reposted by Jason GRIZZLED Bittel
Eat your heart out, H.P. Lovecraft!

Podophrya collini is the little round guy, and he's slurping up the insides of a larger prey (Tetrahymena pyriformis, I think) via long tentacles that latch on with contact.

Nature red in tooth and claw (and pseudopodia)!
Cellular structure self-organizes through an interplay between internal mechanisms and external cues. The single-celled suctorian P. collini builds a trap structure to capture large prey using microtubule feeding tentacles, creating feedback between cell morphology and prey availability.
November 19, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Reposted by Jason GRIZZLED Bittel
Behold the horny beaver!*

*we may need to work on the name...
The cover of Nature’s latest issue is metal as fuck
November 19, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Here it is, the best conversation that’s ever taken place in my house. Mark and June were 5 and 4 at the time. 🦝
November 18, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Jason GRIZZLED Bittel
Wow. Excellent writeup on the white-tailed deer's fascinating digestive tract, and a solid scientific basis for why you shouldn't feed them - a carb-rich pile of corn can be so disruptive to their systems in the winter that it can actually kill a deer within 72 hours.
It's that time of year! The time when deer guts start to undergo a magical transformation!

(Also the time of year many well-intentioned people accidentally mess the whole thing up, leading to dead deer!)

🧪

jasonbittel.substack.com/p/the-deer-t...
The Deer, They Are A-Changin'
Something magical is happening in your backyard.
jasonbittel.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 6:08 PM
The @ksjatmit.bsky.social program changed my life and ultimately helped shape the book I'm about to publish with National Geographic. And now they're looking for next year's fellows!

I cannot recommend this program enough. Happy to talk if you have questions! 🧪

ksj.mit.edu/news/2025/11...
KSJ Opens Application Cycle for 2026-27 Fellowships
Applications for KSJ's Academic-Year Fellowship and the Africa and Middle East Fellowship open November 15 and close January 9.
ksj.mit.edu
November 18, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Annnnd that's enough internet for today.
November 18, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Jason GRIZZLED Bittel
Damn, I love learning stuff.
@nome.bsky.social, check this out.
It's that time of year! The time when deer guts start to undergo a magical transformation!

(Also the time of year many well-intentioned people accidentally mess the whole thing up, leading to dead deer!)

🧪

jasonbittel.substack.com/p/the-deer-t...
The Deer, They Are A-Changin'
Something magical is happening in your backyard.
jasonbittel.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 6:30 PM
It's that time of year! The time when deer guts start to undergo a magical transformation!

(Also the time of year many well-intentioned people accidentally mess the whole thing up, leading to dead deer!)

🧪

jasonbittel.substack.com/p/the-deer-t...
The Deer, They Are A-Changin'
Something magical is happening in your backyard.
jasonbittel.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 5:43 PM