I got an email from one Lin Taylor, who pointed me to a swell new quiz that she and a biology friend constructed. I’m not much for games, but this is a good one, because it not only challenges your knowledge of biology but it’s educational in several ways. Here’s her email and the link:
I’m a biologist turned programmer (I took one of Matthew Cobb’s zoology classes at university!) and long-time reader of your blog. A few weeks ago you published a post ‘how many of these weird animals do you know?’:
My friend and I were disappointed that this wasn’t an *actual* quiz, with multiple choice options… so being industrious people, we made one of our own:
It’s populated with 500 species from the Encyclopedia of Life database, so there is a pretty healthy variety of animals and plants in there (I haven’t seen any fungi or slime moulds yet, unfortunately…). We thought you might enjoy playing it.
I did enjoy playing it, and hope you will too. Again, it’s here, and here’s how it works. For any round you can choose between 3 and 5 questions, all at either “easy”, “medium,” or “hard.” With the first two you can have hints (unlimited for “easy”); but no hints for hard.
Your job is to guess the Latin binomial of a pictured species given three choices. For example, below is a “hard” one (not hard for me, as you see, because I recognize the Latin names of all felids!). And this one is easier than most hard ones.
After each game you can play again, and will get new animals. Try it!
(Lin warns me that if too many people play the game, it could overwhelm the server.)
Hmm…. I’m not doing so well!
Just about the only latin binomial that I know the English version of is Boa constrictor. 🙂
Went for hard. 2 out of 3, and I was pretty much guessing. I will go in again when I get a chance.
I tried for hard with 3, then with 5 questions, and I got 8 correct answers…but I’m basically a zoologist, what helps!
I would not be so successful if I had to type the correct names instead of choosing them.
A good drill anyway!
I got 4 out of 5, but must admit that the picture of one of the animals actually had the latin name on it.(Uncia uncia)
I mostly made half educated guesses as I never studied biology at school but I have a bit of Latin to fall back on. Stupidly my wrong answer was to choose Bos Javanicus for a bird. I actually did know that Bos Taurus is a cow.
At least I know my B. garrullus! (Or at least it was a familiar binomial.)
1. 2 of 3 Hard.
2. 4 of 5 Hard.
Error rate decreasing… =D
It is relatively easy at the easy level if you use a hint and get the common names. At the hard level, I am getting two out of three with my first attempt, so I may quite while I am ahead. Never studied Latin, but my paleontology and general natural history knowledge helps.
I’m too scared to try even the easy ones – I suspect my ignorance will just be exposed over and over again.
I think it’s a fantastic initiative though! I love stuff like this. Good work. 🙂
Tried 10 (you can have up to 10 questions), “easy” but didn’t ask for hints.
8 right, on high school Latin and (more to the point) several years’ reading of WEIT.
On the other hand, most of the animals were ones that I recognized down to species (and hence by common name) by appearance even if I didn’t have a start on the Latin – the exceptions were a pademelon (which I recognized as kangaroo-like, but that was it) and a fish (guessed right on the name by exclusion).
Fun!
🐿🐸🐻
7/10 on hard.
But I cheated. I pulled in info from astronomy (there is a constellation called the peacock, which I just knew) and old music hall songs (Flanders and Swann had a sloth in their bestiary, along with generic name).
But then again, I consider a whale with only about 10% showing above the waterline to be cheating too, so I’m OK with my score. I think that one included the domestic mouse as an alternative, which wasn’t hard to exclude.
Hardly cheating using your experience & making educated guesses!
Especially using the expertise of F&S!!
Mud, mud, glorious mud🎶 Not sure I ever heard the sloth one…
I tried the hard quiz five times, and got all five right each time except once when I only got four. But on many of them I got the right answer by recognising the wrong answers and so only got it right by a process of elimination.
Feeling like the smug git I am – without clues got 5/5, 8/10, 7/10, 9/10… I always look at latin names & try to remember them. Harder with non-European species. Nice quiz!