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

Confirmed lengths reach 29.9-30.5 m and weights up to 190-200 tonnes.

Q 02/05

What is the blue whale's scientific name?

A) Balaenoptera musculus

B) Balaenoptera physalus

C) Megaptera novaeangliae

D) Balaena mysticetus

Answer · why

A) Balaenoptera musculus

B. physalus is the fin whale, Megaptera the humpback and Balaena the bowhead.

Q 03/05

The species name 'musculus' may be a Linnaean pun meaning what?

A) Little mouse

B) Great muscle

C) Blue giant

D) Sea monster

Answer · why

A) Little mouse

It can mean 'muscle' or be a diminutive of 'mouse'; the genus name Balaenoptera means 'winged whale'.

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) The colour of the water it feeds in

Answer · why

C) A yellowish tinge of diatoms on the belly

Herman Melville mentions 'sulphur bottom' whales in Moby-Dick.

Q 05/05

The name 'blue whale' derives from the Norwegian 'blåhval', coined by which whaling pioneer?

A) Roald Amundsen

B) Fridtjof Nansen

C) Carl Anton Larsen

D) Svend Foyn

Answer · why

D) Svend Foyn

He had just perfected the harpoon gun; the scientist G. O. Sars adopted the name in 1874.