Q 01/05

Which marine mammal, like humans, is one of the few animals whose females live decades after they stop breeding?

A) Orca

B) Bottlenose dolphin

C) Harbour seal

D) Walrus

Answer · why

A) Orca

Orcas are among the few animals that undergo menopause; a female keeps travelling and hunting with her pod for decades after her last calf.

Q 02/05

'Ming', caught off Iceland in 2006 and aged at 507 years, was the oldest known individual of what kind of animal?

A) A tortoise

B) A sturgeon

C) A clam

D) A sea snake

Answer · why

C) A clam

A clam of the ocean quahog species, Ming was named by Sunday Times journalists after the Chinese dynasty in power when it was born around 1499.

Q 03/05

What decides whether a sea turtle hatchling is male or female, rather than its chromosomes?

A) The egg's size

B) Nest temperature

C) The mother's age

D) The hatching order

Answer · why

B) Nest temperature

Nest temperature sets the sex: warmer sand produces female hatchlings and cooler sand males, a system called temperature-dependent sex determination.

Q 04/05

Which deep-water fish from off Australia was voted the world's ugliest animal in a 2013 online poll?

A) Anglerfish

B) Monkfish

C) Hagfish

D) Blobfish

Answer · why

D) Blobfish

The blobfish won the Ugly Animal Preservation Society's vote and became its mascot; at 600–1,200 m its gelatinous flesh holds its shape and looks far ...

Q 05/05

Which shore snail's teeth outperform spider silk as the strongest known biological material?

A) Limpet

B) Periwinkle

C) Whelk

D) Abalone

Answer · why

A) Limpet

Limpet teeth are reinforced with goethite, an iron mineral, and tested at a tensile strength of up to 6.5 GPa, beating spider silk's 4.5 GPa.