Q 01/05

English sailors named the macaroni penguin after 'macaronis', who in 18th-century Britain were what?

A) Italian pasta sellers

B) Showy fashionable men

C) Naval ship's cooks

D) Travelling street clowns

Answer · why

B) Showy fashionable men

Showy fashionable men called macaronis wore tall powdered wigs, and sailors saw the same flair in the penguin's yellow crest. The dandies took their n...

Q 02/05

Which American song about a feather in a hat uses 'macaroni' in the same sense as the macaroni penguin?

A) Oh Susanna

B) Turkey in the Straw

C) Yankee Doodle

D) Camptown Races

Answer · why

C) Yankee Doodle

Yankee Doodle began as a British army joke at the expense of colonial troops, who then took up the tune as their own. It is now the state song of Conn...

Q 03/05

Which record does the macaroni penguin hold among the world's penguin species?

A) Deepest diving

B) Most numerous

C) Fastest swimming

D) Longest lived

Answer · why

B) Most numerous

Most numerous of all penguins, the macaroni has several million breeding pairs. Even so, its colonies have been shrinking since the mid-1970s.

Q 04/05

Which objects do macaroni penguins sometimes swallow on purpose, perhaps as ballast for deep dives?

A) Empty shells

B) Fish bones

C) Lumps of ice

D) Small stones

Answer · why

D) Small stones

Small stones up to about 30 mm across are swallowed deliberately. Besides acting as ballast, they may help grind up the hard-shelled prey the birds ea...

Q 05/05

Which prey makes up over 90% of the macaroni penguin's food during the breeding season?

A) Krill

B) Squid

C) Sardines

D) Limpets

Answer · why

A) Krill

Krill fuel the colonies: macaroni penguins are reckoned to eat about 9.2 million tonnes a year, making the species the biggest consumer of marine life...