Animals that are Outa Here! Extinction IQ Assessment
1. What did Steller's sea cow (a marine animal that lived in the Bering Sea) look like before it became extinct in 1768?
A little like a dolphin with a squarish dorsal fin and black skin. No more than 15 feet long, and weighing no more than 5,000 pounds.
They didn't really resemble any animals alive today, but they were between 15 and 20 feet long, weighing around 6,000 pounds. They had thick, tough, deep blue skin and a tail much like a walrus.
Somewhat like a large seal with stout forelimbs, thick black skin, and a whale-like tail. Larger than the largest male walrus-- up to 25 feet long and 22 feet around, weighing up to 8,800 pounds.
My mother-in-law on a good day.
2. What was the predominant range of the Short-faced Bear, an ancient mammal sometimes called the "Bulldog Bear?"
The Short-faced Bear was widespread in western North America from about 1 million years ago, and reached its northernmost range, in the Yukon and Alaska from 50,000 to 25,000 years ago.
The Short-faced Bear was widespread in eastern South America from about 1 million years ago, and reached its northernmost range, in eastern Central America from 50,000 to 25,000 years ago.
The Short-faced Bear was widespread in eastern South America from about 50,000 years ago, and reached its northernmost range, in eastern Central America 25,000 years ago.
The trash repository behind Yosemite's main campground.
3. What made the Coryphodon, a hippo-like mammal that lived fifty million years ago, unique?
It could never leave the water because it completely depended upon the buoyancy of water to support its considerable weight.
It had a brain that weighed only 90 grams in a body weighing 500 kilograms, giving it the smallest ratio of brain weight to body size of any mammal ever known.
It had tusks that were constituted 1/4 of its body length, making it extremely hard to leave the water.
It had ESP.
4. What extinct bird lived on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean? It nested on the ground and ate fruits that had fallen from trees.
The passenger pigeon.
The ivory-billed woodpecker.
The speckled cormorant.
The dodo.
5. How has the extinction of the dodo harmed eco-systems on its native land?
Certain trees can no longer reproduce, because they depended on passing through the dodo's digestive system to become active and grow.
Without dodos to keep populations of monkeys and rats under control, other more vulnerable birds are falling victim to these predators.
Dodos once acted as surrogate parents for many species of other birds, and now without surrogate parents, other birds are in decline.
Dodos kept predatory fish under control, and now many species of algae eating fish have declined dramatically, resulting in major overgrowth of algae.
6. Which bird became extinct after existing as the most abundant bird on earth at one time?
The great auk.
The passenger pigeon.
The withered falcon.
The spotted eagle.
7. Which was the only (now extinct) pinniped ever to exist in the American tropics?
The Caribbean monk seal.
The pink dolphin
The sea cow.
The dung dong.
Flipper.
8. Which of these four threats is NOT one of those that must be decreased to help the survival of the ~600 mountain gorillas left in the wild?
Habitat loss.
Poaching.
War.
Non-human exotic species invasion.
9. The eyes of the Ophthalmosaurus, one of a group of prehistoric marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs, had what interesting feature?
Double eyelids with strange ridges that reached down to its nostrils.
The largest eyes of any vertebrate, and fossil evidence shows that a ring of
bone surrounded its eyeballs.
Extremely deep eye sockets, which suggest that it swam in deep, dark waters
Eyes so close together that they almost comprised one single eye. This feature
might have helped it coordinate quick movements.
It wore glasses.
10. Which is not a relative of the now extinct Great Auk?
The puffin.
The razorbilled auk.
The guillemot.
The sea gull.
11. What was the cause of the demise of the passenger pigeon?
Invasive species of pigeons from Asia killed them off.
They were tremendously overhunted for commercial purposes, and could not
recover.
No one knows.
Kentucky Fried Chicken.
12. What is the proposed reason for the extinction of the woolly mammoth?
Predation and inability to adapt to a warming planet.
Humans eating mammoths' preferred vegetation.
Fur that would not thicken fast enough during a freezing spell across the
earth.
The invention of television distracted mammoths from key hunting and foraging.
tasks
13. The Smilodon is what type of now-extinct prehistoric mammal?
A docile relative of the bobcat.
A distant relative of the timber wolf.
The largest saber-toothed cat.
A close relative of the Asian panda.
14. What were the now-extinct moas?
Reptiles that fed on medium sized mammals and birds in the Amazon basin.
Gentle mammals that fed on grasses and young leaves in Asian forests.
Fierce cats that once prowled Bermuda.
Giant, flightless birds that inhabited New Zealand islands.
