Q 01/05

What is the great white shark's scientific name?

A) Carcharhinus leucas

B) Carcharodon carcharias

C) Galeocerdo cuvier

D) Isurus oxyrinchus

Answer · why

B) Carcharodon carcharias

The others are the bull shark, tiger shark and shortfin mako.

Q 02/05

The genus name Carcharodon combines Greek words meaning what?

A) White belly

B) Sharp tooth

C) Great fish

D) Sea dog

Answer · why

B) Sharp tooth

The species name carcharias is simply the ancient Greek word for shark.

Q 03/05

What Australian English name is used for the species?

A) White death

B) White pointer

C) Grey nurse

D) Bronze whaler

Answer · why

B) White pointer

All the names refer to the white underside, obvious on a dead shark lying upside down.

Q 04/05

Under what name did Linnaeus describe the great white in 1758?

A) Carcharodon carcharias

B) Lamia carcharias

C) Canis carcharias

D) Squalus carcharias

Answer · why

D) Squalus carcharias

Squalus was his catch-all genus for sharks; Andrew Smith coined Carcharodon in 1838.

Q 05/05

Rondelet's 1554 book named the great white 'Lamia' and called it the fish that swallowed whom?

A) Odysseus the wanderer

B) The prophet Jonah

C) Saint Peter the fisherman

D) Sinbad the sailor

Answer · why

B) The prophet Jonah

Lamia was a child-eating monster of Greek myth; Pierre Belon had called it Canis carcharias a year earlier.