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Urban Wildlife: Fascinating Facts About Birds, Beasts, & Bugs in Your Neighborhood Knowledge Cards Deck
Urban Wildlife Fascinating Facts About Birds Beasts Bugs in Your Neighborhood Knowledge Cards Deck Author:Pomegranate This frequently funny deck presents bizarre and surprising facts about animals and insects. No exotic critters here--most of the subjects are common to backyards, basements, vacant lots, and the like. A potentially great teaching tool for kids, these cards are perfect for the classroom, long car rides, or rainy Saturdays. By Lori Pottinger. Size... more »: 3 1/4 x 4 inches.
Sample card: Cleopatra deemed it sacred and forbade that it be harmed. Charles Darwin declared it one of the most important animals in the history of the world. What is it?
Answer: the lowly earthworm. Darwin, who studied earthworms for nearly four decades, wrote: It may be doubted whether there are many other animals in the world which have played so important a part in the history of the world than the earthworm. Aristotle called them the intestines of the soil. Earthworm dung contains five times more nitrogen, seven times more phosphorus, eleven times more potassium, and a thousand times more beneficial bacteria than the material the earthworm initially ate. Worms also improve the structure of the soil. An acre may contain more than a million earthworms, which can eat ten tons of organic debris a year. Their bodies are nearly 70 percent protein, making them rich food for birds and mammals (and even people, in some parts of the world). The world s largest earthworm, found in South Africa, was twenty-two feet long; the Australian Gippsland earthworm grows to twelve feet and can weigh a pound and a half.« less