Q 01/05

Which pack-hunting savanna carnivore is also known as the painted wolf?

A) Black-backed jackal

B) Bat-eared fox

C) African wild dog

D) Brown hyena

Answer · why

C) African wild dog

African wild dog: the pack that hunts together also looks after its own, sharing food with members too weak, sick or injured to hunt.

Q 02/05

Savannas mostly form a transition belt between which two biomes?

A) Desert and tundra

B) Rainforest and desert

C) Rainforest and mangrove

D) Steppe and taiga

Answer · why

B) Rainforest and desert

Rainforest and desert: savanna grows where too little rain falls for closed forest but enough for grass and scattered trees, which is why it rings the...

Q 03/05

'Savanna' reached English via Spanish from which Caribbean language?

A) Nahuatl

B) Quechua

C) Taíno

D) Guaraní

Answer · why

C) Taíno

Taíno speakers met the first Spanish ships in the Caribbean, and the sailors carried home their words for things Europe had no names for, hurricane an...

Q 04/05

Which savanna cat routinely drags its kills up into trees?

A) Cheetah

B) Serval

C) Caracal

D) Leopard

Answer · why

D) Leopard

Leopard: on the ground it would lose the carcass to lions or hyenas, which are bigger or come in packs, so it hauls the kill into the branches and ret...

Q 05/05

Dry-season fires sweep through savannas again and again; how do they stop forest taking over?

A) By baking the soil hard

B) By felling mature trees

C) By killing tree seedlings

D) By scaring off grazers

Answer · why

C) By killing tree seedlings

By killing tree seedlings: the flames stay in the grass layer, so thick-barked adult trees survive and the grass resprouts from deep roots, but few sa...