Anagrammed Animals Trivia Quiz

Answer:

The word BARE, meaning naked or uncovered, is an anagram of BEAR, a mammal in the ursine family. Fuzzy wuzzy (who famously had no hair, so wasn't very fuzzy, was he) might have been described as a bare bear.

The word CHAINED, describing something whose freedom of movement has been constrained by a chain or similar restraint, can have its letters rearranged to give an ECHIDNA. Echidnas, native to Australia and New Guinea, are one of the only two species of egg-laying mammals called monotremes. Echidnas are also called spiny anteaters, because of the modified hair spines on their backs and the fact that their preferred diet is based on ants and termites.

COLOR DICE is a phrase that might describe the cubes used in playing some games, which have a symbols on each face to make them unique. Some games use dice of different colors, not just the standard white with black pips, or symbols of different colors such as a red anchor, a blue star, etc. instead of using a different number of pips. In any case, if you mix up the letters to describe a pair of them, you can create a CROCODILE - a large carnivorous reptile which should be avoided when swimming in the waters where they dwell. It was, according to Rudyard Kipling in 'Just So Stories', a crocodile that was responsible for stretching the baby elephant's nose into the familiar trunk.

A PIN HOLD might be a move in wrestling in which one contestant holds the opponent's shoulders to the ground, which is called pinning them, and maintains this long enough to score a point or win the round (depending on the form of wrestling involved). Releasing the letters allows them to rearrange themselves into a DOLPHIN, an aquatic mammal known for its intelligence as well as its graceful and often playful swimming. Dolphins are somewhat larger than their cousins, porpoises, and have a distinct beak.

A FIFE RAG could be a piece of material used to clean the musical instrument called a fife. Since it is a woodwind instrument, lengthy periods of play lead to some accumulation of moisture on the interior, which is best wiped away before storing the fife. The same letters, of course, can be used to give a GIRAFFE, the tallest land animal, whose incredibly long neck only has the same number of vertebrae as a human neck.

A GUN may be used by a hunter to shoot a GNU, although personally I feel shooting them with a camera is a better way to interact with the African antelope also known as a wildebeest. Flanders and Swann had several routines involving gnus, including 'The Gnu Song', in which an animal identified in a zoo as an elk furiously contends, "I'm a g-nu, I'm a g-nu, The g-nicest work of g-nature in the zoo. I'm a g-nu, how d'you do?"

RAT MESH is unlikely to be a finely-spaced screening made from rats, but could be a fine metal screen that keeps rats in or out of a space, depending on which side of the mesh they are placed. Such a screen could also be helpful in keeping a pet HAMSTER from wandering too far when you let it out of its cage to roam for a while.

A female with yellow hair might be described as a BLONDE GAL (or a blond gal, but that is missing a letter); if you are describing a dog in the retriever group, specifically a Labrador retriever, with such coloring for its fur, you might also call it a GOLDEN LAB.

To flog can mean to whip or to sell; there is little point whipping a piece of tableware, so maybe you are trying to sell it when you FLOG a DISH. Presumably it is not large enough to serve as a container of water for your pet GOLDFISH to use as an aquarium.

If you SEEK DRUM, maybe you should visit a music shop that can sell you a full drum kit - or just a nice little set of bongo drums. Neither will be particularly useful in attracting or keeping a MUSK DEER (used for the cover photo of this quiz), which are not actually deer, (Cervidae), but members of the closely-related Bovidae, along with antelopes and goats. Their name comes from the musk glands, traditionally used in production of perfumes.

The SHORE of a body of water is the land near its edge, and that can be a good place to spot all kinds of animals if it is fresh water. Then again, the classic image of a HORSE cantering along a sandy beach is more likely to be seen at the seashore.

NAILS are (among other things) hard keratinous structures that protect the end of human fingers and toes. They are essentially the same as the claws seen on many other animals, but not on molluscs like the SNAIL.

Someone who as been PAROLED has been released from incarceration; the word literally comes from the fact that they first had to give their parole (adapted from a French word meaning promise) regarding future behavior. It would be unusual to accept a promise from a LEOPARD, so these large spotted cats (who proverbially don't change their spots) are usually kept in cages when they are not allowed the freedom of living in the wild.

Since alms are donations made to help those in need, usually undertaken as an act of charity which is often motivated by a sense of religious obligation, NO ALMS are really needed by SALMON, as these fish have no need for housing or clothing, and are capable of catching their own food.

A flat rectangular floor covering might be decorated by tying a piece of ribbon into a shape composed of two loops and two hanging ends, a MAT BOW. This is not a particularly practical action, but hey - when your three-year-old wants to decorate, what are you going to do? The mat is less likely to object to the ribbon than might be the case if you tried to attach it around the neck of a WOMBAT. This solid, squat marsupial is likely to object strenuously, so better leave the bows elsewhere.

The incorrect options are all anagrams of flowers: aster, geranium, hydrangea, rose and sunflower.