Answers
1. A
A group of pandas is called an embarrassment, bamboo, or cupboard of pandas.
Shrewdness is the collective noun for a group of apes.
Murder is a group of crows.
And a group of parrots is called a pandemonium!
2. B
Normal cats have 18 toes - five on each front paw and four on each hind paw.
In rare cases, however, cats can have more toes: polydactyl cats have a congenital physical anomaly and may have as many as eight digits on their fore or hind paws or, less commonly, on both sets of paws.
3. D
While life expectancy differs by type and subspecies, a goat’s natural life span is thought to be between 15 and 18 years. However, goats are slaughtered at ages as young as only 3 to 5 months old, and are often slaughtered between 6 months to a year.
4. C
While the exact number of tigers is unknown, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), there are at least 3,890 tigers in the wild as of 2016, more than 2,200 of which are in India. It is estimated that there were over 100,000 tigers in the wild at the start of the 20th century, but several subspecies of the big cat have since been brought to the brink of extinction.
In comparison, there are 7.6 billion humans in the world.
5. B
A male duck is called a drake. A female duck is called ... a duck.
6. D
A polar bear’s skin is actually black. Baby polar bears have pink skin which turns black as they grow older.
Their fur is ... not white. It’s clear, colourless, translucent, and hollow. It reflects light and makes the bear look white.
Polar bears that eat a lot of seals can be yellowish because of the seal oils accumulated in the fur.
Polar bears that live in warmer climates can have algae growing inside their hair, which can make them look green.
7. A
Elephants trumpet when they are excited, angry, upset, or playful by pushing air through their trunk.
8. B
A dog’s gestation period is between 58 to 68 days, usually about 63 days.
A rat’s gestation period is normally 22 days, but can be between 21 to 23 days. The average length of human pregnancy is 280 days. Elephants have the longest gestation period of all mammals, carrying their young for 640 to 660 days - that’s nearly two years! - before giving birth.
9. A
A baby kangaroo is called a joey.
Male kangaroos are called bucks, boomers, jacks, or old men. Female kangaroos are does, flyers, or jills. A group of kangaroos is a flock, herd, mob, or troop.
10. C
The duck-billed platypus is one of only two egg-laying mammals (the other being the echidna or spiny anteater).
Orca and bats are mammals that give birth to their babies instead of laying eggs. Penguin are birds that lay eggs.
11. D
The largest bird in the world, the ostrich is a very impressive runner. Ostriches can sprint at speeds of up to 72 km/h (45 mph) on average, with a peak 96.6 km/h (60 mph) during short periods, making them the fastest animal on two legs.
A horse gallops at 40 - 48 km/h. Bison can move at speeds of up to 56 km/h. And a giraffe can sprint at 55 - 60 km/hr.
12. C
An octopus has three hearts - two pump blood to the gills while a third circulates it to the rest of the body.
What’s even more peculiar though is that an octopus effectively has nine brains. Its highly complex nervous system includes a central brain and a neural structure at the base of each of its eight arms which controls movement.
- S.A.
