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.

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

Blue whale

Sperm whale

Elephant Seal

Cuvier's beaked whale

3.

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

The Common dolphin

The Bryde's whale

The Dugong

The Minke whale

4.

In presence of a stranded cetacean, the following actions should be taken:

Gently try to drag the whale or dolphin back to the water

Immediately call the local authorities and experts

Keep the skin of the animal wet

Carefully try to keep the blowhole (or blowholes) free of sand or other materials

5.

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

6.

Where can Minke whales be observed?

In the Southern Hemisphere only

In both Northern and Southern Hemispheres

In the Northern Hemisphere only

It is sadly already extinct

7.

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)

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 baleen whales have typical callosities on its head?

Humpback whale

Right whale

Gray whale

Bryde's whale

10.

Is Orcinus orca a toothed or a toothless cetacean?

Toothless

Toothed

Orca is not a cetacean

None of the above