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.

Which suborder of the Cetacea order does the Sperm whale belong to?

Mysticeti

Archaeoceti

Odontoceti

None of the above

2.

What is echolocation?

A natural occurring sonar system, extensively used by toothed whales

It is synonym with radar

The ability to locate a prey using natural biomagnetism

The use of electric fields to locate both preys and predators

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.

Feeding cetaceans in the wild can:

Have a negative impact on their feeding behaviour

Help them survive

Negatively alter their social behaviour and interactions, for example with males harassing females for a longer time, which they should rather spend searching for food

Help genuine friendship between cetaceans and humans

5.

Talking about the ability of some cetaceans to make sounds and process the echoes bouncing back:

Echolocating cetaceans can recognise a woman being pregnant and may be therefore particularly careful and cautious in her presence

Echolocating cetaceans can see air in our lungs and therefore understand we cannot breathe underwater

Being echolocated by a cetacean is a guarantee the animal will not bump into you by mistake

Echolocation is the use of sound (and relative echoes) to locate objects, estimate their distance, shape and density

6.

Which of the following baleen whales are unmistakable because of their typical V-shaped blow?

Gray whale

Right whale

Minke whale

Humpback whale

7.

Which of the following species belong to the suborder Mysticeti?

Sperm whale

Blue whale

Bottlenose dolphin

Northern Right whale

8.

What is the smallest rorqual (whale with throat grooves)?

The Common dolphin

The Bryde's whale

The Dugong

The Minke whale

9.

The so-called melon in Odontoceti plays a crucial role in:

Focusing the sounds used in echolocation

Excreting

Feeding

Mating

10.

Which of the following assertions are true?

Cetaceans evolved from land mammals

The ancestors of cetaceans always inhabited the sea

Cetaceans evolved from a now extinct warm-blooded fish

Baleen whales (Mysticeti) are believed to have evolved from reptiles