Trading cards for the natural world

Inspired by a disheartening study (PDF) showing that children can identify far more Pokemon than local plants and animals, Phylo is an online trading card game featuring real flora and fauna around the world. Players pit them against each other while learning facts about each species. Who would win a battle between a muskox and a brown throated sloth? The muskox.

What makes Phylo especially cool is that the project is open to everyone's contributions -- cards, art, even the rules of the game itself.

I wasn't able to figure out how to actually play the game (rules are still being hashed out), but I did learn that the kakapo is a heavy, flightless New Zealand parrot with a "pleasant odour". And it can defeat a Hawaiian Bobtail Squid in battle.