First the
answers to the first quiz.
1. Actually,
only Spinosaurus
is a dinosaur among those alternatives. Mosasaurus
is a mosasaur, a marine reptile descended from a separate lineage of lizards;
no dinosaurs lived in the seas. Brontosaurus
is the informal name of Apatosaurus
(since it is informal, it should actually be written “Brontosaurus”, as is the
formal custom, but I chose not to here, because it would look odd/suspicious),
which indeed is a dinosaur (a sauropod); “Brontosaurus”, however, is not.
2. This question
was not intended to be ambiguous, but a friend pointed it out: remains of a
dinosaur that resembles Tyrannosaurus rex
very closely has been found in Asia, but there is disagreement about whether it
belongs to the same species, or is a different species of the same genus (Tyrannosaurus bataar), or is a different
species of a different genus (Tarbosaurus
bataar). Depending on how you classify it, the answer includes Asia or not.
What is undisputed is that Tyrannosaurus
rex has been found in North America
and not in South America or Asia (yet!).
3. The picture
shows the teeth of a conodont, an
enigmatic group of invertebrates mostly known only from their fossil teeth!
4. Another trick
question! The typical textbook answer is five
mass extinction events, but there is disagreement among experts about two of
these (the Late Devonian and end-Triassic mass extinction events). They were
not quite as massive as the others (less destruction over longer time), and
therefore do not qualify to stand among the other three. Thus, depending on
your view, the answer can be either five, four
or three.
5. This is the
last trick question, I swear! (I just can’t help it sometimes… haha!) Dinosaurs are not birds! Birds may be dinosaurs, so some dinosaurs were
birds, but all dinosaurs were not birds. Also, as my friend pointed out to me,
penguins, which are dinosaurs, are semi-aquatic, and thus not “strictly”
land-living. There is also an extinct bird group called Hesperornithes, which
is thought to have been at least semi-aquatic as well.
To make this
even more buggy, since B and C are false, so is D, by
definition!
Now to the
second quiz! I promise, these questions will be (a little bit) cleaner… Only
one option is correct in these five. (Or, such is my intention.)
1. Gallimimus is a(n)…
A. Theropod
dinosaur
B. Ornithopod
dinosaur
C. Neornithine
bird
D. Informal name
for Gallicusaurus
2. The
‘mammal-like reptiles’ are formally known as
A. Cynodonts
B. Diapsids
C.
Mammoreptilians
D. Synapsids
3. What type of
fossil is this?
A. Tabulate
coral
B. Bryozoan
C. Regular
echinoid
D. Irregular sea
urchin
4. When did the
first land plants appear?
A. Devonian
B. Ordovician
C. Carboniferous
D. Silurian
5. What is
another word for the shell of an invertebrate?
A. Tectum
B. Test
C. Urca
D. Carapace
No comments:
Post a Comment