NRMjobs Quiz answers 29-Oct-2020

This week’s theme: ‘Pollen’

(1) Pollen first appeared in the fossil record about (a) 370 million years ago (b) 260 million years ago (c) 150 million years ago (d) 40 million years ago.

Answer: (a) 370 million years ago.

(2) What is the study of pollen grains called?

Answer: Palynology

(3) True or false: Marine seagrasses produce pollen under water, which is sometimes carried from flower to flower by tiny crustaceans.

Answer: True. (NOTE: This question has been corrected following feedback from readers - thank you).

(4) The pollen of what plant is largely responsible for Melbourne’s occasional ‘thunderstorm asthma’ events?

Answer: Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne).

(5) What pollination technique – important for tomatoes – is employed by both native blue-banded bees and by European bumblebees, but not by honeybees?

Answer: Buzz pollination.

NRMjobs Quiz answers 22-Oct-2020

This week’s theme: ‘Pouches’

(1) What prevents wombats’ pouches from filling up with dirt while they are burrowing?

Answer: The pouch opens backwards.

(2) Does a kangaroo joey leave the pouch to urinate and defecate?

Answer: No.

(3) What vertebrate uses a large pouch to catch its prey?

Answer: Pelican.

(4) True or false?: Female echidnas have pouches.

Answer: True.

(5) What male vertebrate has a pouch for carrying and hatching eggs?

Answer: Seahorse (also pipefish).

NRMjobs Quiz answers 15-Oct-2020

This week’s theme: ‘Footy fauna’

(1) How many AFL and NRL clubs have birds as their official team nicknames?

Answer: Seven (AFL: Crows, Magpies, Hawks, Swans, Eagles; NRL: Sea Eagles, Roosters).

(2) How many AFL and NRL clubs have exotic species as their official team nicknames?

Answer: 10 (AFL: Lions, Cats, Tigers, Bulldogs; NRL: Broncos, Bulldogs, Panthers, Rabbitohs, Roosters, Tigers).

(3) How many AFL and NRL clubs have fish as their official team nicknames?

Answer: Two (Paramatta Eels and Cronulla Sharks).

(4) How many times have either the NRL (ie since 1998) or the AFL (ie since 1990) men’s grand finals been won by teams with marsupial nicknames?

Answer: Twice (North Melbourne Kangaroos, AFL 1996 and 1999).

(5) Among the major national football codes (AFL, NRL, Super Rugby, A-League/W-League) how many current clubs have native plants as their official nicknames?

Answer: One (NSW Warratahs).

NRMjobs Quiz answers 08-Oct-2020

This week’s theme: ‘Convergence’

(1) Acridotheres tristis and Manorina melanocephala are unrelated birds from different continents. However, they look similar, behave similarly, and both are regarded as pests in some parts of Australia. Even their common names sound similar – what are they?

Answer: Common myna and Noisy miner.

(2) What identifying physical features are almost identical in humans and koalas?

Answer: Fingerprints.

(3) Notoryctes typhlops is a desert-dwelling Australian marsupial, while Talpa europaea is a common European placental. Despite their different origins, the two species have many similarities. What are their common names?

Answer: Central Marsupial Mole (aka Itjaritjari) and European Mole.

(4) Themeda triandra is native to both Australia and southern Africa. In Afrikaans it is known commonly as Rooigras (‘rooi’ means ‘red). What is its common name in Australia?

Answer: Kangaroo grass or ‘roo grass’.

(5) What ability has evolved separately in whales and bats?

Answer: Echolocation.

NRMjobs Quiz answers 01-Oct-2020

This week’s theme: ‘Ramsar'

(1) The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty to protect wetlands of global importance. What does ‘Ramsar’ stand for?

Answer: Ramsar is the name of the city in Iran where the treaty was first signed in 1971.

(2) With an area of more than two million hectares, what ephemeral lake system is Australia’s largest Ramsar site?

Answer: Coongie Lakes, in the Lake Eyre Basin.

(3) Jock’s Lagoon is the smallest Ramsar site in Australia, covering just 18 hectares. Where is it?

Answer: North East Tasmania.

(4) Australia has the third most Ramsar sites of any country in the world - 65 in all. Which country has the most? Which has the second most? (one point each).

Answer: United Kingdom (170 sites) and Mexico (142 sites).

(5) In 1974, Australia was the first country in the world to designate a ‘Wetland of International Importance’ under the Ramsar Convention. What was the wetland?

Answer: Coburg Peninsula, Northern Territory.

NRMjobs Quiz answers 24-Sep-2020

This week’s theme: ‘Colours’

(1) A major tourist drawcard of the Murray-Sunset National Park, near Mildura, are the famed … Lakes.

Answer: Pink.

(2) The small freshwater fish Mogurnda adspersa is known commonly as the Southern …-… gudgeon.

Answer: Purple-spotted.

(3) A disease discovered in SA in the 1970s which kills eucalypyts and other native plants is known as Mundulla …?

Answer: Yellows.

(4) The fruiting body of the exotic Amanita muscaria fungus is … with … spots.

Answer: Red with white spots.

(5) What colour is the Very Hungry Caterpillar?

Answer: Green (with an orange head).

NRMjobs Quiz answers 17-Sep-2020

This week’s theme: ‘Marsupitoons’

(1) What is the name of the bettong who appears as an occasional character in The Guardian’s ‘First Dog on the Moon’ cartoon? (bonus: what is the name of the bandicoot character?).

Answer: Fiona the Unemployed Bettong / aka Fiona the Precariously Employed Bettong (bonus: The ABC Interpretive Dance Bandicoot)

(2) What frenetic marsupial made his official debut in a short 1954 Warner Brothers cartoon, which also featured Bugs Bunny?

Answer: Taz, the Tasmanian devil.

(3) What best-selling video game franchise begins on a beach the fictitious Wumpa Islands, an archipelago south east of Australia? (bonus: what is the name of the beach?)

Answer: Crash Bandicoot (bonus: N. Sanity Beach).

(4) In the Magic Pudding, what is the name of Bunyip Bluegum’s be-whiskered uncle?

Answer: Uncle Wattleberry.

(5) What 1990s US animated TV series starred an immigrant wallaby as the main character, whose sidekicks were Heifer, Filbert and Spunky?

Answer: Rocko’s Modern Life.

NRMjobs Quiz answers 9-Sep-2020

This week’s theme: ‘Extinct’

(1) What small, central Australian mammal – last collected in 1933 and now presumed extinct –built large nests up to three metres long?

 

Answer: Lesser Stick-nest Rat (Leporillus apicalis).

 

(2) In 2019 a native Queensland mouse, the Bramble Cay melomys (Melomys rubicola) was formally declared to be extinct. Why did this extinction make world headlines?

 

Answer: It was believed to be the first mammal extinction caused by anthropogenic climate change.

 

(3) By 1855, three island sub-species of emus had been extinguished in southern Australia. What islands did they inhabit? (one point each).

 

Answer: King Island, Kangaroo Island & Tasmania.

 

(4) What dainty, kitten-sized, spindly-legged marsupial which formerly inhabited inland deserts in central and west Australia, was last reported in the 1950s, and is now known only from 29 museum specimens?

 

Answer: Pig-footed bandicoot (Chaeropus sp.)

 

(5) According to the EPBC Act List of Threatened Flora, how many plants have become extinct in Australia since 1788? (a) 7 (b) 17 (c) 27 (d) 37 (e) 47

 

Answer: (d) 37

NRMjobs Quiz answers 3-Sep-2020

This week’s theme: ‘Native conifers’

(1) What extraordinarily long-lived Australian conifer is the only member of the Lagarostrobos genus?

 

Answer: Huon pine (Lagarostrobos franklinii).

 

(2) What critically endangered conifer species occurs within 150km of Sydney, and was unknown to science until 1994?

 

Answer: Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis).

 

(3) Callitris (‘Cyprus pine’) is a southern hemisphere genus, with 13 of the 16 recognised species native to Australia. What country are the other three species native to?

 

Answer: France (New Caledonia).

 

(4) Growing to 45 metres, and occurring naturally only in Queensland, what Araucaria species is famous for its enormous cones and large, edible seeds.

 

Answer: Araucaria bidwillii (Bunya pine).

 

(5) The genus Athrotaxis – which includes Pencil Pines and King Billy Pines – is endemic to what Australian State or Territory?

 

Answer: Tasmania.

 

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.