Meet zoologist Lindsay Nikole, who is based in Torrance, California and who uses both short form (Instagram and TikTok) and long form (YouTube) social media to educate the public about animals of all kinds, as well as about ecosystems, evolution, and more. In an introductory video, she explains her journey to becoming a zoologist and social media educator—she interned at several wildlife sanctuaries in high school and college, earned a degree in zoology from Oregon State University in 2020, and taught 9th grade biology before resigning from her teaching job to do fulltime online educational content creation. She explains that she started with TikTok but is now creating more content on YouTube, a longer form that she feels is a better fit for her educational content.
I've watched many of her videos and I think she's terrific—she's informative about her subject matter, and has a very relatable delivery style, complete with a lot of "fucks" thrown in. Her content includes weird organisms, prehistoric creatures, evolution, and conservation efforts.
She also has a series called "Spooky Specimens," where she's covered creatures like invading scorpions, giant squids, and rat kings, and a series called "WTF is THIS?" where she's created videos about toxic invertebrates, worms and maggots, and how snakes lost their legs.
