Thursday, August 27, 2020

NRMjobs Quiz answers 27-Aug-2020

This week’s theme: ‘Rakali’

 

(1) True or false?: Rakali carry their young in a pouch.

 

Answer: False.

 

(2) Rakali made headlines around Australia in March 2019, when a study from northern WA found it was one of the few native mammal species which had learned to do what?

 

Answer: Safely prey on cane toads.

 

(3) According to a biography by William Shawcross, which billionaire businessman, when a child, used to trap Rakali on his family’s property on the Murrumbidgee River, paying his sister Helen a penny each to skin them?

 

Answer: Rupert Murdoch.

 

(4) Which of the following is not a physical feature of a Rakali? (a) White tip on tail (b) Golden belly fur (c) Water repellent fur (d) Flat, beaver-like tail (e) Webbed hind feet.

 

Answer: (d) Flat, beaver-like tail

 

(5) What common fishing accessory has been banned in Victoria, and is under scrutiny elsewhere, because of its impact on Rakali, Turtles and Platypuses?

 

Answer: ‘Opera house’ yabby nets.

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

NRMjobs Quiz answers 20-August-2020

This week’s theme: ‘Redbacks’

 

(1) Approximately how many Australians are bitten by redbacks every year? (a) 20 (b) 200 (c) 2,000 (d) 20,000 (bonus: approximately how many people die each year from redback bites).

 

Answer: (c) 2,000 (bonus: approximately zero).

 

(2) The Redbacks is the official nickname of what sporting team?

 

Answer: South Australian Men’s Cricket.

 

(3) What close relative of the redback – whose name translates in English as ‘night stinger’ – is an endangered native species in New Zealand?

 

Answer: Katipo (Latrodectus katipo).

 

(4) What aspect of redback’s cannibalistic mating behaviour has made the species internationally famous amongst behavioural ecologists?

 

Answer: During mating, the male redback often actively helps the female to consume him, twisting his body around so that his abdomen is presented to the female’s fangs.

 

(5) In what decade was Slim Newton’s song ‘Redback on the Toilet Seat’ released in Australia? (bonus: in what year did it reach number 3 on the National Top 40 Singles Chart).

 

Answer: The 70s (bonus: 1972).

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

NRMjobs Quiz answers 13-August-2020

This week’s theme: ‘Fossils’

(1) Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve, near Shark Bay in Western Australia, is home to living examples of what ancient form of living organism, dating back perhaps 3.5 billion years?

 

Answer: Stromatalites.

 

(2) What site discovered in 1946 on Nilpena Station, in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges, has given its name to a Period, 635-542 million years ago, when complex multi-cellular lifeforms first appeared on Earth?

 

Answer: Ediacara.

 

(3) In 1955 a roadworker near Canowindra, in central NSW, turned up a rock slab bearing a mass of fossils from the late Devonian Period (about 360-370 million years ago). What were the fossils of?

 

Answer: Freshwater fish.

 

(4) In 2008 scientists named a 380-million-year-old fossil ‘Materpiscis attenboroughi’ (after David Attenborough). What made the fossil, discovered at Western Australia’s Gogo fossil site, so special?

 

Answer: The fossil included a placoderm fish embryo still attached to its mother by an umbilical cord – the earliest evidence of live birth.

 

(5) What nickname was given to an opalised pliosaur, dating from about 115 million years ago, which was discovered by an opal miner at Coober Pedy in South Australia in 1987?

 

Answer: Eric.

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

NRMjobs Quiz answers 6-August-2020

This week’s theme: ‘Emblems’

 

(1) What is the official bird emblem of Australia?

 

Answer: Emu.

 

(2) What is the animal emblem of NSW?

 

Answer: Platypus.

 

(3) The leafy sea dragon, Phycodurus eques, is the fish emblem of what State / Territory?

 

Answer: South Australia.

 

(4) Sturt’s desert rose is the floral emblem of what State / Territory?

 

Answer: Northern Territory.

 

(5) Match the bird with its State / Territory (one point each): (a) Yellow wattle bird, (b) Black swan, (c) Kookaburra, (d) Wedge-tailed eagle, (e) Helmeted honey eater, (f) Gang-gang cockatoo, (g) Piping shrike, (h) Brolga.

 

Answer: (a) Yellow wattle bird – Tasmania (b) Black swan – WA (c) Kookaburra – NSW (d) Wedge-tailed eagle – NT (e) Helmeted honey eater – Victoria (f) Gang-gang cockatoo – ACT (g) Piping shrike – SA (h) Brolga.- Queensland.