ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL

JOHN AFFLECK Title: Author: Illustrator: Publisher: RRP:

The Australian Animal Atlas Leonard Cronin Marion Westmacott Allen & Unwin $29.99 GOLD Coast kids are lucky, being close to various ecosystems and myriad marine and land animals.

For starters, there is the seashore, which The Australian Animal Atlas lists as one of the most challenging environments.

Many small creatures are forced to live in the extreme conditions of the inter-tidal area.

Some hide in rock pools, others burrow beneath the sand, and some move up and down the beach with the rise and fall of the tide.

Local kids are familiar with the pipi, or eugaree, a mollusc related to mussels and oysters that lives just beneath the sand surface and is exposed by wriggling your feet as small waves rush up the beach.

As the atlas explains, they quickly burrow back into the sand and leave two tubes sticking above the sand so they can suck water through – one to feed on any tiny organisms, the other to rid waste.

Some little marine animals have truly bizarre eating habits. The biscuit star, for example, is a bit of a stomach turner. When it wants to feed it lies on the sea bed and turns its stomach inside out through its mouth, digesting small creatures and plants before pulling its stomach back in and moving on.

This book has loads of interesting information, even about animals you’re very familiar with.

You probably already know, for example that the platypus lays eggs. There aren’t, however, too many animals that hunt like the little webfooted, streamlined platypus.

It loves shrimps, worms, insect larvae and other small critters, but it does not use its eyes or ears to hunt.

These are shut tight as it moves about under water.

Instead, the monotreme uses a “sixth sense’’ – its sensitive bill acts like a radio receiver to detect prey.

There are plenty more stunning facts to learn in the animal atlas.

Readers can find out about a fish that walks, the deadly venom of the desert death adder, and what that blue-tongued lizard in your garden eats.