Q 01/05

A 2011 study put Earth's eukaryote species at 8.7 million and found most of them were what?

A) Living in the oceans

B) Not yet named

C) Already extinct

D) Single-celled

Answer · why

B) Not yet named

Not yet named: the study reckoned about 86% of species still awaited description, a backlog that could take taxonomists 1,200 years at the pace of the...

Q 02/05

Which fruit's species epithet lycopersicum comes from the Greek for 'wolf peach'?

A) Apricot

B) Tomato

C) Pomegranate

D) Persimmon

Answer · why

B) Tomato

Tomato is Solanum lycopersicum once more: Philip Miller moved it out of Linnaeus's potato genus into one of its own, Lycopersicon, and genetic evidenc...

Q 03/05

Why is 'boa constrictor' a rarity among English animal names?

A) It honours its describer

B) It is also the binomial

C) It predates Linnaeus

D) It names a genus

Answer · why

B) It is also the binomial

It is also the binomial, Boa constrictor, one of the few scientific names to enter everyday speech; every boa squeezes its prey, yet only this species...

Q 04/05

Which rorqual's name musculus may be a Linnaeus pun, since the Latin can mean 'little mouse'?

A) Fin whale

B) Humpback whale

C) Minke whale

D) Blue whale

Answer · why

D) Blue whale

Blue whale is Balaenoptera musculus, 'winged whale' plus a word that can mean 'muscle' or 'little mouse', possibly Linnaeus's joke about the largest a...

Q 05/05

Following his friend Peter Artedi, in which class did Linnaeus first file whales and the manatee?

A) Fishes

B) Amphibians

C) Insects

D) Worms

Answer · why

A) Fishes

Fishes held the whales until the 10th edition of 1758 moved them into the mammal class, one of many reshuffles across the twelve editions Linnaeus ove...