Q 01/05

In 2009 a flock of Canada geese knocked out both engines of a jet that then ditched safely in which waterway?

A) The Hudson

B) The Potomac

C) The Delaware

D) The Mississippi

Answer · why

A) The Hudson

The Hudson became an emergency runway for US Airways Flight 1549 after the birds struck minutes out of LaGuardia, and all 155 people on board survived...

Q 02/05

Roman legend says the honking of sacred geese on the Capitoline Hill foiled a night attack by which invaders?

A) Goths

B) Gauls

C) Huns

D) Vandals

Answer · why

B) Gauls

Gauls climbing the Capitoline by night slipped past the guards and the dogs, but not the geese, which were kept on the hill as birds sacred to the god...

Q 03/05

Bar-headed geese are famous for migrating over which mountain range, at heights where the air holds little oxygen?

A) The Andes

B) The Appalachians

C) The Himalayas

D) The Alps

Answer · why

C) The Himalayas

The Himalayas stand between the birds' winter homes in lowland India and their breeding lakes in Central Asia, and tracked flocks have crossed at abou...

Q 04/05

Goose bumps take their name from the pimpled skin of a goose after its feathers have been what?

A) Plucked

B) Singed

C) Soaked

D) Clipped

Answer · why

A) Plucked

Plucked goose skin is dotted with raised bumps where the feathers were rooted, and human skin copies the look when tiny muscles pull each body hair up...

Q 05/05

Konrad Lorenz studied which behavior by getting newly hatched geese to follow him as if he were their mother?

A) Conditioning

B) Mimicry

C) Habituation

D) Imprinting

Answer · why

D) Imprinting

Imprinting happens in a short window after hatching, and some of Lorenz's birds fixed on his wading boots; the work helped earn him a share of a Nobel...