Are You Squidding Me? Trivia Quiz

Answer: snail

Squid and snails both belong to the phylum Mollusca. This means they share typical characteristics of a soft body, a muscular foot, and a mantle which encloses the internal organs and secretes a shell.

The incorrect answer options are marine animals that belong to other phyla. Sea urchins belong to Echinodermata, jellyfish belong to Cnidaria, and shrimp belong to Arthropoda.

Answer: feet or limbs

Within the phylum Mollusca, decapods belong to a group (a super-order) known as Decapodiformes - not to be confused with another group of marine animals, also called decapods, which belong to a different phylum - phylum Arthropoda, class Crustacea, order Decapoda.

Literally translated the word decapod means "ten-footed". Molluscan decapods have ten limbs, specifically eight shorter arms and two longer tentacles, and include squid and cuttlefish. Crustacean decapods include shrimp, crabs, lobsters, and crayfish.

Answer: shell

Most molluscs have an external shell; a few lack a shell. The squid, however, has an internal shell called a pen or gladius. Gladius is a Latin word meaning sword, indicating that the shape of the shell resembles a sword. Its function is to act as support for the body and to provide a place for muscles to attach.

The pen is made of a chemical called chitin and resembles translucent plastic.

Answer: 3

Squid have three hearts. Two are called branchial hearts; their function is to pump blood to the gills, where oxygen is taken up. Branchial means pertaining to the gills. Blood then flows to the third or systemic heart, where the oxygenated blood is pumped to the rest of the body.

Answer: eye

In the animal kingdom, the colossal squid has the largest eye. The largest known specimen measured 27 centimetres (10.6 inches) in diameter, approximately the size of a soccer ball or basketball. This is almost three times larger than the animal in second place, the blue whale, whose eye measures about 11 cm (4.3 inches) in diameter. As you might expect, squid have very good vision.

The sperm whale has the largest brain and the blue whale has the largest stomach and heart.

Answer: blue

Animal blood comes in a variety of colours. In most cases, the colour is dependent upon the chemical composition of the substance in their blood which carries oxygen. Human blood gets its red colour from a protein in the blood cell called haemoglobin, which contains iron. Squid have blood which is a deep blue colour because it contains a similar protein called haemocyanin. Haemocyanin contains copper instead of iron.

Answer: shoal or school

The traditional collective noun for a group of squid is a shoal or school, the same as for fish. Although there are many websites that state the collective noun for squid is a squad, the term squad is not officially recognised by marine science authorities.

Smack, fever and consortium are the collective nouns for jellyfish, stingrays, and octopi respectively.

Answer: colossal squid

The colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) is the largest of all marine invertebrates. The giant squid (Architeuthis dux) is the second largest. The colossal squid is slightly shorter in length but has a much larger and heavier body. The largest recorded specimen of the colossal squid weighed 495 kilograms (1,091 lb), approximately twice the weight of the giant squid.

The jumbo squid, also known as the Humboldt squid, is quite large - its maximum size is approximately 1.5 metres (5 feet) in length and 50 kg (110 lb) in weight. However, this pales in comparison to the giant squid, which is approximately five times the size and weight of the jumbo squid, or the colossal squid, which is approximately ten times bigger. There is no such thing as a mammoth squid.

Answer: to distract predators

Squid have an ink sac to store the ink, called sepia, produced by their ink gland. When a squid is threatened, it can squirt out the ink to cloud the water, which gives it a chance to escape. As well as being visually distracting, it is also believed that the chemical nature of the ink may interfere with the predator's chemoreceptors.

Humans have used squid ink for a variety of purposes; for example, as an ink, a dye, food colouring, and in traditional Chinese medicines.

Answer: calamari

Calamari is the Italian word for squid, from the Latin "calamarius", meaning "pertaining to a pen" - so-called because of the presence of the pen-shaped internal shell and ink sacs. It can be eaten in many ways - raw, dried, pickled, grilled, stewed, stir-fried - but perhaps the most popular is coated in batter and deep-fried.

Escabeche and bouillabaisse are fish dishes. Dolmades are grape/vine or cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and minced meat - they don't contain fish or seafood.