Q 01/05

Which US president hoped the Lewis and Clark Expedition would find living giant Ice Age beasts in the West?

A) Thomas Jefferson

B) John Quincy Adams

C) James Madison

D) Andrew Jackson

Answer · why

A) Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson had written that the huge animals behind America's fossil bones still lived in the continent's unexplored north. The idea that a spec...

Q 02/05

Which animal, a national symbol printed on lottery tickets, vanishes from El Valle to open The Sixth Extinction?

A) Harpy eagle

B) Resplendent quetzal

C) Golden frog

D) Baird's tapir

Answer · why

C) Golden frog

The golden frog is really a toad, and it waves its limbs in a kind of semaphore because the rushing streams where it lives drown out its calls.

Q 03/05

Which bird name was first used for the great auk before sailors gave it to southern look-alikes?

A) Puffin

B) Penguin

C) Albatross

D) Cormorant

Answer · why

B) Penguin

Penguin first meant the great auk, a flightless bird of the North Atlantic, and explorers reused the word for the unrelated birds they met in the Sout...

Q 04/05

Which extinct human relatives, named after a German valley, left traces of their DNA in people of non-African ancestry?

A) Neanderthals

B) Denisovans

C) Homo erectus

D) Cro-Magnons

Answer · why

A) Neanderthals

Neanderthals interbred with modern humans, a discovery that came in 2010 from the first full genome read out of ancient bones.

Q 05/05

Which award did The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert win in 2015 in the General Nonfiction category?

A) National Book Award

B) Kirkus Prize

C) Pulitzer Prize

D) Carnegie Medal

Answer · why

C) Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize citation called the book an exploration of nature that makes readers face the threat human behaviour poses to a world of astonishin...