Nude, Green Leaves au chats.

Abhinav Dhar

What to expect

• This is a wildlife/flora-fauna/anatomy/nature quiz.

• 5 Rounds

1. List It-12. Dry Round-13. List It-24. Dry Round-25. List It-3

List It-1 Rules

• Different types of bird beaks.

• 6 blanks in all.• Fill in each with the purpose of each type.• Slight deviation from the answer accepted on the Quizmaster’s discretion.

• +5 for each correct answer.• A 5-point bonus for getting 4 right.• A 10-point bonus for getting all 6 of them.

Fill in the Blanks.

2

3 4

5

1

6

End of Round

Dry Round-1• 9 Questions.• Goes clockwise.

• All on Infinite Pounce.• +10/0 on a direct or a pass.• +10/-10 on a pounce.

• P.S. Sometimes a slide following the question gives a hint slide, but that comes into play when all teams agree, or have guessed once. Marked with a Question Mark.

Q1. Id the advertiser.

HINT: For 5 marks

WWF

Q2.

• For many years this tree in eastern California was the world's oldest known living non-clonal organism (at 4846 at present), until superseded by the discovery in 2013 of another bristlecone pine in the same area with an age of 5,064 years.• The given name of the tree is one which is commonly used to refer to

anything of great age.• What is the tree called, one of the most famous ones around?

Methuselah

Q3.

• In North America, the term "canola" — a contraction of Canada and ola, for "oil low acid"— came into usage in the 1980s to avoid the negative connotations between its original name, and a ‘social evil’.• What was it called before canola came into the picture?

Rapeseed

• So, Canola oil was Rapeseed oil.

Q4.

• This natural wonder is the largest of its kind, and is located on the southern edge of Wood Buffalo National Park in Northern Alberta, Canada.• It is so big that it spans twice the width of the Hoover dam and can

even be seen from space, and its length is approaching 1km.• Several generations have worked on it since the mid-1970s and it's

still growing.• Such structures have immense advantages like flood and drought

control, excess nutrient removal and pesticide and herbicide removal.• What exactly is this?

Beaver Dam

• 'This dam is particularly big and Google Earth has also shown the beavers moving north because of climate change.’

• 'Their dams are also good because they slow the flow of water leading to less drought and less flooding.’

Q5.

• There has never been a documented instance of a Y catching a X, which is slightly surprising because Ys are known to eat pretty much everything!• And while a X can reach speeds of 32 kph, a Y can reach speeds of up to 70

kph, which makes it rather surprising that it would not be able to prey on it.• The Xs have an amazing ability to use ground cover as they run and they

rarely move in a straight line, which Ys are unable to do with that level of agility.• Also the fact Xs have the ability to fly might just make the fact plausible.• What are X and Y, both of which reside in arid regions?

HINT: For 5 marks

X-Roadrunner Y-Coyotes

Q6.

• The term was originally used to describe the use of this formation in Ancient Greek warfare, and is derived from the Greek word meaning finger.• The word has come into use in common English to describe “a group of

people standing, or moving forward closely together” like ‘a ______ of police’.• The digital bones in the hands and feet of most vertebrates, is also called

by the same name.• What are the bones/formation called, which is also a famous pseudonym

for a character which stopped an airplane from taking-off in the series finale of a TV series?

Phalanx/Phalange

• Phalanx is the formation.• The phalanx bones are also called phalange.

Q7.

• On the 9th of December 1493, Christopher Columbus, sailing near the Dominican Republic, sees three animals, which he assumes to be mermaids, having heard their lore back at home, and describes them as “not half as beautiful as they are painted.”• Perhaps it was because he saw the female of the species who tend to have

mammary glands on their upper bodies near their armpits, did he err.• The sailors may also have thought the animals’ flippers looked like human

hands, and named them after the Latin word ______, meaning “having hands.”• So what had Columbus and his crew probably seen in reality, a sea animal

which is said to share an ancestor with the elephant?

Manatees

Q8.

• One of the oft cited examples of symbiosis of the animal kingdom is the symbiotic mutualisms between the X and Y.

• Together, they are obligatory symbionts, which means that each species is highly dependent on the other for survival.

• In order to live among the Ys, Xs first and foremost protect themselves from nematocyst strikes. Nematocysts are harpoon-like stingers on the Y’s tentacles used to capture prey and ward off predators. While most fish try to eat the nutrient-rich tentacles, the possibility of being stung while eating deters the X from nibbling on it. In return, the Y has evolved to not strike the X.

• On the off chance the X is struck, it is protected by a thick mucus layer. The mucus layer is three to four times thicker than other fish, and is a combination of both Y and X mucus. The X is born with a mucus layer that is already thicker than average, but, as it grows, it mixes its mucus with that of the Y’s to create a stronger barrier.

• In return for a safe and protective home, the X benefits the Y in several important ways. These include cleaning the Y, providing nutrients in the form of waste, and scaring away predatory fish such as the butterfly fish.

• What two are these, whose symbiotic relationship must have been seen by all of us here?

HINT: For 5 marks

Clown Fish and Sea Anemone

Q9.

• The Hawaiian X-X Crab, also known as the Boxer Crab has it claws covered with sea anemones which grow on the crab’s claws.• The species of crab and anemone have a mutualism based relationship,

meaning both the crab and anemone benefit from the arrangement.• The X-X Crab uses the anemones as a defence mechanism, waving his

claws in the air wildly if a predator approaches so that the sting from the anemone will drive the other creature away.The anemones, on the other hand, benefit by having the leftovers of any food the crab eats.• What is the rather apt name for this crab?

Hawaiian Pom Pom Crab

End of Round

List It-2 Rules

• One of the privileges of being a scientist is that when you discover something new, you get to name it. And tradition says you can name it anything you want. So they do!• Fruit flies, have been used extensively as laboratory animals, and geneticists

have been studying them for decades.• The following 5 questions-ish will be about what scientist have named

(actually!) genes with specific features found in a fruitfly.• For e.g. Ken and Barbie: Fruit flies that fail to develop external genitalia.• Stranded At Second: A fruit fly that dies, usually in the second larval stage of

development.• +5 for each correct answer.• A 10-point bonus for getting it all correct.

a) The gene in a fruit fly that makes it hard to develop a heart.b) Agoraphobicc) Groucho Marxd) Cheap Datee) A fruit fly without this gene dies in two days.

Answers

a) Tinman (from the Wizard of Oz).b) A fruit fly with larvae that look normal but never crawl out of the

egg shell.c) A fruit fly that produces an excess of facial bristles.d) A fruit fly that expresses high sensitivity to alcohol.e) Kenny: Named for the South Park character who dies in each

episode.

End of Round

Dry Round-2•9 Questions.•Anticlockwise this time around.

•All on Infinite Pounce.• +10/0 on a direct or a pass.• +10/-10 on a pounce.

Q10.

• The solar plexus, because of its radiating nerve fibers, is a complex network of nerves located in the abdomen, and it is said that one single blow to this spot with the right amount of force is enough to kill a person. Even a small blow to the stomach can upset this region, which can cause the diaphragm to spasm.• What is this sensation commonly called as, which can often happen in

contact sports?

Getting the wind knocked out of you

Q11.

• The Hydrangea macrophylla is widely cultivated in many parts of the world as it has the ability to grow in many climates, and is also used in a variety of processes worldwide.• But the curious thing about the flowers of this plant are that they

can bloom to be blue, red, pink, light purple, or dark purple.• What factor is responsible for such a contrast in the visual aspect of

the flowering plant?

pH of the Soil

• An acidic soil will usually produce flower colour closer to blue, whereas an alkaline soil will produce flowers more pink.

• This is caused by a colour change of the flower pigments in the presence of aluminium ions which can be taken up into hyperaccumulating plants.• (A hyperaccumulator is a plant capable of growing in soils with very

high concentrations of metals, absorbing these metals through their roots, and concentrating extremely high levels of metals in their tissues.)

Q12.

• One of the alternate names for a Proboscis monkey, a species of monkey that is endemic to the island of Borneo in the south-east of Asia, originates from the first half of the 19th century, when the locals found physical resemblance of the animal to something quite ubiquitous to the area at the time.• What alternate name of the Proboscis monkey am I talking of?

Monyet belanda ("Dutch monkey"), or orang belanda ("Dutchman")

• Indonesians remarked that the Dutch colonisers often had similarly large bellies and noses.

Q13.

• This device is one of the many examples of technology being inspired from the natural world.• This particular one is called the ______ Eye X-ray Imaging Device (blank is the

animal). • The device shoots a small stream of low-power X-rays through an object, and

a few come bouncing back off whatever is on the other side. Just as in the ______ eye, the returning signals are funnelled through tiny tubes to create an image, similar to the sea-dweller is question.• USA’s Department of Homeland Security has already invested $1 million in

these designs, which it hopes will be useful in finding contraband.• What animal does it take inspiration from?

Lobster

Q14.

• Doctoral student Matthias Wittlinger’s came up with an idea, to equip the ants with stilts (using brush bristles), to prove a certain hypothesis.• The ants with the stilts overshot their nest by around 50%.• But when the same stilted ant went foraging for food, they had no

problem returning.• To prove what hypothesis?

That ants measure the distance between food source and home by the number of strides.

Q15.

• Coromandel Ebony or East Indian Ebony, also called locally as tendu/kendu tree is a species of flowering tree native to India and Sri Lanka and has a hard, dry bark.• The bark of the four kinds of trees in its species found in India has

been determined to have significant antiplasmodial effects against Plasmodium falciparum, which causes malaria in humans.• But the primary use of the tendu leaf comes in its use which can be

seen as quintessentially Indian, and is something whose sales surpass even its conventionally counterpart for the ‘richer’.• Where are these tendu leaves used traditionally?

Beedi

Q16.

• In 2011, scientists were looking at inspirations from nature for the future of aircrash investigators to create a flight recorder which could absorb the high level of deceleration from the wreckage of a plane crash.• So, So Sang-Hee Yoon and Sungmin Park of the University of California,

Berkeley, studied video and CT scans of an animal and found that it has four structures that absorb mechanical shock, which interacted to suppress vibration.• These animals experience decelerations of 1200g, whereas humans are often left

concussed if they experience 80 to 100g.• To test their system, Yoon and Park placed it inside a bullet and used an airgun to

fire it at an aluminium wall. They found their system protected the electronics ensconced within it against shocks of up to 60,000g. • What was taken to be the inspiration behind this to-be design?

Woodpecker’s head

Q17.

• The porphyrias are a group of rare diseases in which chemical substances called porphyrins accumulate.• The body requires porphyrins to produce heme, which carries oxygen in the

blood; but, in the porphyrias, there is a deficiency (inherited or acquired) of the enzymes that transform the various porphyrins into others, leading to abnormally high levels of one or more of these substances. This manifests with either neurological complications or skin problems or occasionally both.• Porphyria has been suggested as an explanation for the origin of legends,

based upon certain perceived similarities between the condition and the folklore.• What legends?

The legends of vampire and werewolf

Q18.

• This engraving by Maria Sibylla Merian, German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator is the source of a sort of a misconception.• The illustration is seen as the source of naming of a certain member

of the animal family, though in reality it rarely does the activity to justify its name.

• What am I talking about?

Goliath Birdeater

• Is also called ‘Goliath bird-eating spider’; the practice of calling theraphosids (tarantula family) "bird-eating" derives from this early 18th-century copper engraving by Merian that shows one eating a hummingbird though in reality it only rarely preys on adult birds.

End of Round

List It-3 Rules

• Different collective nouns for group of animals.

• 5 in all. Blanks indicative of length.

• +5 for each correct answer.• A 10-point bonus for getting all of them.

• P.S. Collective Nouns are not something which are fixed, so sometimes they differ.For e.g. The collective noun for a group of geese on the ground is a gaggle; when in flight, they are called a skein, a team, or a wedge; when flying close together, they are called a plump.

1. A tower of _______ .2. An embarrassment of ______.3. A parliament of ____.4. A murder of _____.5. A kindle of ______.

Answers

1. A tower of giraffes.2. An embarrassment of pandas.3. A parliament of owls.4. A murder of crows.5. A kindle of kittens.

End of Round

Wait! There is more….

Q19.

• This is the older logo of X Coffee Company, a speciality coffee and espresso retailer, the second largest in the United Staes, after Starbucks.• Name the company.

Caribou Coffee

Q20.

• While clearing his property, John McIntosh, a Scottish-Canadian farmer discovered a number of seedling X trees growing wild.• He transplanted them to his garden, and by the following year only

one had survived.• Several years later, the tree was producing the crisp, delicious fruit

that is now well known. The discoverer eventually dubbed it the 'McIntosh ___’, which is still the X's official name.• What is X?

Apple

• The Macintosh project was begun in 1979 by Jef Raskin, an Apple employee who envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer. He wanted to name the computer after his favourite type of apple, the McIntosh, but the spelling was changed to "Macintosh" for legal reasons as the original was the same spelling as that used by McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., the audio equipment manufacturer.• Steve Jobs requested that McIntosh Laboratory give Apple a release

for the name with its changed spelling so that Apple could use it, but the request was denied, forcing Apple to eventually buy the rights to use the name.

Q21.

• This doha by Kabir is about what specific species of which animal?

"कस्तु�री� क�� डल बसे , मृ�ग ढूं��ढूं बन मृ��हि� ।ऐसे घट घट री�मृ ��, दुहिनया� दे खे न�हिं�! ॥“

Musk Deer

Q22.

• It is said that no matter how much English a German might learn, and however proficient he becomes at it, there is still one word he can be caught on.• This is especially useful, and has been used in the past to catch

German spies.• What animal’s name is this, which might remind of a Pixar flick?

Squirrel

Q23. Fill in the blank.

Cicada

• Only three species, out of the thousands of cicada species in the world, have a 17 year life cycle: Magicicada septendecim, Magicicada cassini, and Magicicada septendecula.

Q24.

• These dogs are mentioned, as cú in Irish laws and in Irish literature which dates from the 5th century or, in the case of the Sagas, from the old Irish period - AD 600-900.The word "Cu" often became an added respected prefix on the names of warriors as well as kings denoting that they were worthy of the respect and loyalty of a Cu.• What breed of dogs, the tallest of all dog breeds?

Irish Wolfhound