Q 01/05

Depression-era Southerners nicknamed the gopher tortoise a 'chicken' after which US president?

A) Franklin Roosevelt

B) Herbert Hoover

C) Calvin Coolidge

D) Woodrow Wilson

Answer · why

B) Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover was blamed for the hard times, so free tortoise meat became 'Hoover chicken'. Hunting gopher tortoises for food is now illegal.

Q 02/05

The gopher tortoise's species name comes from Polyphemus, a cave-dwelling giant of which kind in Greek myth?

A) Titan

B) Centaur

C) Cyclops

D) Gorgon

Answer · why

C) Cyclops

Cyclops Polyphemus is the one-eyed giant blinded by Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey. The tortoise shares his name because it, too, lives in a cave.

Q 03/05

Gus, a gopher tortoise who lived past 100, spent more than 80 years in a museum in which Canadian city?

A) Halifax

B) Toronto

C) Vancouver

D) Winnipeg

Answer · why

A) Halifax

Halifax treats Gus as a local icon. The Nova Scotia Museum's director bought him for five dollars in 1942, and for years he wandered the halls freely.

Q 04/05

Beachgoers have carried gopher tortoise hatchlings into the ocean after mistaking them for which animals?

A) Horseshoe crabs

B) Diamondback terrapins

C) Baby alligators

D) Sea turtles

Answer · why

D) Sea turtles

Sea turtles nest in the same dunes, but gopher tortoises cannot swim well and can easily drown. Clawed toes instead of flippers give the tortoise away...

Q 05/05

Because hundreds of other animals shelter in its burrows, the gopher tortoise is given which ecological label?

A) Keystone species

B) Pioneer species

C) Invasive species

D) Sentinel species

Answer · why

A) Keystone species

Keystone species fits because more than 350 other species use the burrows, from frogs and mice to owls. Many of them decline wherever the tortoises va...