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.

Why is a stranded cetacean in a highly life-threatening condition?

Because it cannot breathe

Because its body design was not conceived by Nature to fully cope with gravity out of the water

Because it cannot efficiently dissipate heat on land (overheating)

Because it quickly gets dehydrated and its skin is also sensitive to the ultraviolet radiations of the sun

2.

Is Orcinus orca a toothed or a toothless cetacean?

Toothless

Toothed

Orca is not a cetacean

None of the above

3.

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

4.

What baleen whales are mostly seen in Peninsula Valdes (Argentina)?

Orcas, which hunt seal and sea lion pups right up the beach

Southern Right whales

Blue whales

None of the above

5.

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

6.

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

It is the most acrobatic of all baleen whales (Mysticeti)

It only inhabits the Northern Hemisphere

It has unusually long, very distinctive flippers (pectoral fins)

Its songs (only males sing) are well known for their complexity and variety

7.

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

Interspecific breeding

By coincidence

Convergent evolution

Divergent involution

8.

Which of the following baleen whales have typical callosities on its head?

Humpback whale

Right whale

Gray whale

Bryde's whale

9.

In which place(s) are Orcas known to attack mother and calf Gray whale pairs?

Monterey Bay (CA, United States)

Kaikoura (New Zealand)

Portofino (Italy)

Peninsula Valdes (Argentina)

10.

Cetaceans can keep their body warm in the water by means of:

A thick layer of proteins under their skin, called blubber

A huge production of heat, due to constant swimming

A thick layer of fat under their skin, called blubber

A special countercurrent blood-vessel system, which limits the quantity of heat lost from their flukes and flippers