Fun with Quizzes

Are you a Cetacean expert?

Instructions
To pass the test you must answer correctly at least 7 questions out of 10. For each question, one or more answers can be correct and you need to select all the correct options to score a point. Test evaluation is immediate and does not require you to provide any personal data.

1.

Cetaceans are mammals. It follows that:

They cannot be very streamlined

They lay eggs

They need to surface from time to time in order to breathe

They nourish their young with milk

2.

Herman Melville's white whale in the novel Moby Dick was actually:

A Great White Shark

A Whale Shark

A Sperm whale

A Blue whale

3.

Which of the following assertions about the Sperm whale are true?

Its blow is unique in being projected forward and on the left

It belongs to the suborder Odontoceti

It can dive as deep as 2000 metres (6000 feet)

There is an organ in its head called Spermaceti, containing huge amounts of a waxy substance (which has nothing to do with sperm, though)

4.

The reason(s) why cetaceans look more like fish than land mammals is (are):

Interspecific breeding

By coincidence

Convergent evolution

Divergent involution

5.

The Mexican bays and lagoons of San Ignacio, Guerrero Negro and Magdalena are world-famous breeding grounds for:

Humpback whales

Blue whales

Sperm whales

Gray whales

6.

Which of the following species are known to sometimes kill other marine mammals?

Sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus)

False killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens)

Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae)

Orca (Orcinus orca)

7.

Which of the following assertions about the Gray whale are true?

It performs the longest seasonal migrations between breeding and feeding grounds

It has a higher than average number of parasites

Its scientific name is Eschrichtius robustus

Females are larger than males

8.

Which of the following cetaceans are only found in the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez)?

Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus)

Boto (Inia geoffrensis)

Vaquita (Phocoena sinus)

Dall's porpoise (Phocoenoides dalli)

9.

Which of the following countries has formalised a moral opposition to whaling and prohibits killing and harassing of cetaceans to its citizens anywhere in the world?

Australia

Japan

Norway

Iceland

10.

Some tourists tell you they have seen a mother and calf Gray whale pair in Patagonia:

It could be, but only during the Southern Hemisphere winter

It is impossible, because the Gray whale only inhabits the West coast of South America

It is impossible, because the Gray whale only inhabits the Northern Hemisphere

It is very possible, since the Gray whale is the most sighted cetacean in Patagonia