"Animal animal" Animals Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hippocampus hippocampus

The genus name Hippocampus comes from two Greek words - "hippos", meaning horse, and "kampos", meaning sea monster. That seems a bit harsh as a description of these delicate little fish! The short-snouted seahorse is found in the Mediterranean Sea, where it seems to have originated, and in parts of the North Atlantic between the Canary Islands and the United Kingdom. They usually live in shallow coastal waters or estuaries.

H. breviceps is the short-headed seahorse, H. minotaur the bullneck seahorse, and H. zosterae the dwarf seahorse.

Answer: Mephitis mephitis

The word mephitis means a disgusting smell, and is synonymous with the words used for the incorrect options. It was originally a Latin word meaning noxious vapour, which was also the name of a minor goddess who protected people from the harmful effects of such vapours.

The striped skunk is roughly the size of a domestic cat, and can be found over almost the entire mainland United States, as well as parts of northern Mexico and much of Canada. Their odour serves as an effective defence against most predators, the exception being the great horned owl, which has virtually no sense of smell. The only other member of the genus Mephitis is M. macroura, the hooded skunk. There are some other animals called skunks which belong to the closely-related genus Conepatus, such as the American hog-nosed skunk, C. leuconotus.

Answer: Indian cobra

The Indian cobra is also called the spectacled cobra because the pattern on the back of its hood (with some imagination) resembles an early type of spectacle, such as pince-nez. Along with the three incorrect options, it is one of the four species of snakes responsible for the bulk of poisonous snake bite hospitalizations in India. The genus Naja has around twenty species (the number changes as scientists reconsider their classifications), all found in Africa and Asia. The genus name comes from an Old Indic word naga (also written as naag), which pretty much meant snake.

The Indian cobra is familiar to many from its use in snake charming. As it prepares to attack, it raises its head from its coiled body and spreads its hood. If it is held in a basket, the snake charmer can make it appear to be entranced by moving the pipe which it is preparing to attack in such a way as to produce a swaying motion of the snake's head.

Answer: Vicugna vicugna

The alpaca (Vicugna pacos), llama (Lama glama), guanaco (Llama guanaco) and vicugna (Vicugna vicugna) are the four laminoids, a tribe of the camelid family. Alpacas and llamas have been domesticated, while guanacos and vicugnas are only found in the wild. Vicugnas are mostly found in the Andes - they are native to Peru, where most of them can be found, but have spread to nearer parts of Argentin, Chile and Bolivia. They have also been introduced into Ecuador. The vicugna, the smallest and most graceful of the laminoids, is the national animal of Peru. It is prized for its fine wool, which is very expensive because the animals must be collected from the wild, and each one can only be shorn every three years.

Sadly, once again it was not the llama.

Answer: Amoebidae

The family Amoebidae contains also includes the genus Amoeba. Unlike these relatives, the five species belonging to the genus Chaos have multiple nuclei. There is a long history of confusion over the identification and naming of this species. It is now believed that C. chaos classified by Linnaeus in the 18th century and the Peloxyma carolinsensis identified by H. V. Wilson in 1900 are in fact the same organism. When the decision was made that they did not belong in the genus Peloxyma, they were reclassified to the family Amoebidae, in their own genus. Hence the confusion over the species name - some wish to use the original species name, following the accepted principal of using the name allocated by the first discoverer. For the purposes of this quiz, that is my choice, too.

In any case, C. chaos is a large (sometimes up to 5mm across) single-celled organism. Members of this species change their cell shape to create extensions called pseudopods, which are used both for movement and for encircling and ingesting food.

Answer: Lemmus lemmus

The Norway lemming, L. lemmus, is the only vertebrate native and endemic to Fennoscandia, the region composed of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Russian regions of Karelia and the Kola peninsula. They have a dramatic population-size cycle, which repeats at roughly four year intervals, but can occur more often if there is a particularly good season - a shorter or less severe winter than usual. Since lemmings reach sexual maturity about a month after birth, and can produce a litter of around six young roughly once a month, a slightly longer breeding season can make the population grow dramatically larger than usual. This leads to food pressure, and younger or weaker lemmings will be forced to leave their home territory in search of food. With a lot of lemmings on the move, geography can force them into a relatively confined space, leading to social stress, and the possibility of a panicked flight from the scene of fighting. Suicidal marches over the edge of cliffs, however, have never been documented (even though we have all heard about them).

The other rodents named in the incorrect options were the black rat (R. rattus), the steppe lemming (L. lagurus) and the lesser Egyptian jerboa (J. jaculus).

Answer: Whooper swan

The word for the genus of swans is simply the Latin word for a swan. The whooper swan, which breeds in Arctic areas, migrates over long distances south to its summer homes, which are mostly found in southern Europe and southeastern Asia. They are the national bird of Finland, appearing on its original one-euro coin.

The black swan (C. atratus) is found in Australia, the black-necked swan (C. melancoryphus) in South America, and the trumpeter swan (C. buccinator) in North America.

Answer: Alces alces

In North America, the name for this species comes from the Algonquian languages, derived from words meaning 'strip off', a reference to the fact that the male's antlers drop off after the mating season each year, and re-grow in the spring. There are several North American subspecies, including the Eastern moose, the Western moose and the Alaskan moose.

The European elk is another subspecies, with the subspecies name Alces alces alces. If pronounced with the hard 'c' sound of traditional Latin, it is clear why the Latin name of 'alce' has turned into the English word elk.

In North America, however, there is a totally different animal called an elk, Cervus canadensis; also called the wapiti, it is one of the largest species of deer in the world.

Answer: Loggerhead sea turtle

The loggerhead sea turtle is so called because of its large head. They live their lives at sea, except for brief visits ashore by females to lay their eggs in a hole dug on the beach from where they originally hatched, or nearby. The young emerge and dig their way to the surface about three months later, usually during the night, and immediately make their way to the water and start swimming until they are well out to sea. Hatchlings often use floating brown seaweed of the genus Sargassum to provide protective cover while they grow. Human activities have had dramatic impact on loggerhead turtles - the introduction of the red fox into Australia, for example, led to widespread destruction of turtle nests, and a dramatic decrease in their population.

Answer: Western lowland gorilla

The Western gorilla, G. Gorilla, has two subspecies - the Western lowland gorilla, G. g. gorilla, and the Cross River gorilla, G. g. diehli; the Eastern gorilla, G. beringei, also has two subspecies - the Mountain gorilla, G. b. beringei, and the Eastern lowland gorilla, G. b. graueri.

There is some debate as to whether the population of mountain gorillas found in Uganda's Bwindi National Park are a distinct subspecies of G. beringei.