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 of the following cetacean species do not have a dorsal fin?

Gray whale

Beluga

Minke whale

Southern Right whale

2.

The Whale Shark is a shark, not a whale. It follows that:

It is not a mammal

It is a fish

It is not an air breather

It does not suckle its young

3.

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

4.

Strandings of cetaceans can be caused by:

Military sonar systems

Infections and other diseases

Local changes of the Earth's magnetic field

Ancestral desire of cetaceans to come back to land

5.

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

6.

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

7.

Who is the current record holder for deep diving among Marine Mammals?

Blue whale

Sperm whale

Elephant Seal

Cuvier's beaked whale

8.

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

9.

Which of the following cetaceans can reach speeds of over 30 km/h?

Southern Right whale

Bottlenose dolphin

Humpback whale

Dall's porpoise

10.

The Pilot whale has a higher than normal rate of:

Liver diseases

Twin births

Lactic acid formation when diving longer than 15 minutes

Stranding