Perhaps they were released from a predator, but no kid wants to hear about a tooth fairy getting torn about by a falcon. Yet they apparently subsequently flourished in warmer continents, which suggests that the restriction may have been a product of other species which outcompeted them in warmer climates, which they were subsequently released from in the regions they invaded. The lack of a tooth fairy myth elsewhere in the world would suggest that the species was originally restricted to colder temperatures. What effect its introduction had on the local species we can’t really know, however I for one find it hard to believe that passenger pigeons were completely wiped out solely by human hunting. So it follows that the species originated in Northern Europe, and spread (presumably a product of British colonisation) from there. The tooth fairy seems to inhabit Northern Europe, as well as other English-speaking countries like Australia and the US. I made an implicit promise in the opening paragraph that this article would have something to do with teaching ecology to children, so let’s look at a few aspects of ecology that are easily relatable to tooth fairies*. Anyone who has listened to our podcast Cinematica Animalia knows how seriously I take my cryptozoology, so naturally creating a faux ecology for Tinkerbella dentata was of the utmost importance. This may have satisfied him, but not me.Ĭut to an hour later, and I’m still thinking about this. But why would they explode? I actually had to think about this one, and decided to go with the story that it was like when bees died after stinging you. He asked what would happen if he did, and I absent-mindedly replied that they would explode. I reminded him before bed that when the tooth fairy arrived that night, he had to make sure he didn’t look at it. Such an opportunity presented itself last week when he lost his first tooth. So whenever there’s a weird opportunity to relate my kid’s interests to my work, I jump at it. I’m lucky in that I have a kid who is already quite interested in the natural world, but it doesn’t automatically mean that he’ll take on board things like evolution, biological invasions, the MacArthur-Wilson Theory of Island Biogeography. Sure, I can explain the Coriolis effect to a bunch of Bachelor’s students, but teaching geographic range expansion to a six-year old is a different prospect. Image Credit: Kimberley Nagle, Public Domain, Image Cropped Teaching complicated ecological concepts to kids isn’t the easiest thing in the world.
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