Q 01/05

A 1992 study proposed that giants like Diplodocus had simple extra versions of which organ in their necks?

A) Lungs

B) Kidneys

C) Hearts

D) Brains

Answer · why

C) Hearts

Hearts, in a chain: each simple pump would pass blood up to the next. Without them, the study reckoned, the main one would need to weigh 1.6 tons.

Q 02/05

In 2017, which animal's skeleton replaced Dippy the Diplodocus in the main hall of London's Natural History Museum?

A) Blue whale

B) Woolly mammoth

C) Sperm whale

D) Giant squid

Answer · why

A) Blue whale

Blue whale bones 25 metres long, nicknamed Hope, now fill the hall. The young whale had stranded on a sandbank in Ireland in 1891.

Q 03/05

The long, tapering tail of Diplodocus has often been compared by scientists to which object?

A) A fishing rod

B) A lasso

C) A battle club

D) A bullwhip

Answer · why

D) A bullwhip

A bullwhip is the comparison: the thin tip might have been cracked to make noise or scare off attackers. The tail had about 80 bones and made up over ...

Q 04/05

Andrew Carnegie gave copies of his Diplodocus skeleton to heads of state in the hope of promoting what?

A) Free trade

B) World peace

C) Public libraries

D) Science teaching

Answer · why

B) World peace

World peace was the aim: Carnegie hoped a shared wonder would show nations how much they had in common. His great-grandson has called it dinosaur dipl...

Q 05/05

Rare fossil skin from a quarry in Montana shows that the body of Diplodocus was covered in what?

A) Feathers

B) Coarse hair

C) Bony plates

D) Scales

Answer · why

D) Scales

Scales in at least six shapes, none wider than a centimetre, crowd a skin patch under 70 centimetres long. It probably came from a young animal.