Q 01/05

What distinction does the blue whale hold among all animals?

A) Fastest swimmer in the ocean

B) Largest ever known to have existed

C) Deepest diver of any mammal

D) Longest-lived of all vertebrates

Answer · why

B) Largest ever known to have existed

Largest ever known to have existed, the blue whale was long safe from whalers because of its size and speed, until exploding harpoon guns made it catc...

Q 02/05

In 2017, a blue whale skeleton named Hope replaced which dinosaur in the main hall of London's Natural History Museum?

A) Dippy the Diplodocus

B) Sue the T. rex

C) Big John the Triceratops

D) Stan the T. rex

Answer · why

A) Dippy the Diplodocus

Dippy the Diplodocus was only a plaster replica, and after 112 years at the museum it was taken apart and sent on a tour of museums around Britain.

Q 03/05

The blue whale's species name, musculus, may be a pun by Linnaeus meaning what?

A) Little mouse

B) Winged whale

C) Blue giant

D) Sea monster

Answer · why

A) Little mouse

Little mouse is one reading of musculus, which also meant 'muscle' in Latin, perhaps because some flexing muscles were thought to look like moving mic...

Q 04/05

Whalers nicknamed the blue whale 'sulphur bottom' because of what?

A) The rotten-egg smell of its blow

B) Its yellow-stained baleen plates

C) A yellowish tinge of diatoms on the belly

D) Yellowish barnacles on its underside

Answer · why

C) A yellowish tinge of diatoms on the belly

A yellowish tinge of diatoms on the belly is picked up in cold feeding waters, and the whales shed that film on returning to warmer seas.

Q 05/05

A blue whale's tongue alone can weigh about as much as what?

A) A dog

B) A horse

C) An elephant

D) A jumbo jet

Answer · why

C) An elephant

An elephant is about the weight of that tongue, which pushes seawater out through the baleen plates so the tiny prey stays trapped inside to be swallo...