Noah's Anarchy Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cheetah

The Thomson's gazelle is named after the Scottish explorer, Joseph Thomson, who undertook several expeditions in eastern Africa during the 1870s and 1880s. These included establishing a route from Tanzania to Lake Tanganyika and another from the east African coast to Lake Victoria. He was also a geologist and naturalist and recorded details of many different species during his expeditions.

Although on paper a cheetah can run considerably faster than a Thomson's gazelle, with a top speed of about 75mph, the gazelle tends to have better stamina. The gazelle also has the ability to zigzag at high speed - making it a tricky dinner to catch for the average cheetah. As a gazelle's evasion tactics would be of little use in the enclosed space of the ark, let's hope neither of them had to board too close to the pair of cheetahs.

Answer: Anteater

The giant anteater, silky anteater, northern tamandua and southern tamandua are the four species which fall under the suborder Vermilingua and are covered by the common name anteater. The term 'anteater' is also often informally applied to other species such as the aardvark.

Anteaters don't just stick to ants, their diet also commonly includes various termites and grubs. This means there must have been a number of small insectoid species actively avoiding all anteaters present on Noah's ark. Oddly enough, stag beetles don't eat male deer, wolverines don't eat wolves and milk snakes don't drink milk!

Answer: Stoat

Stoats are native to parts of North America, Europe and Asia, but have been introduced to other areas of the world such as New Zealand. Their diet generally consists of small rodents such as voles, rats and shrews, although in Britain they are known for preying on rabbits. This fact probably explains the decision to export them to New Zealand in the nineteenth century, as its farming economy was suffering from an overpopulation of rabbits.

Unfortunately the introduction of stoats to New Zealand quickly had a negative impact on the local bird populations, particularly the ground-nesting and flightless species which were vulnerable to attack by the stoats. Clearly the flightless birds who needed a spot on the ark will also have been giving the stoats an extremely wide berth.

Answer: Rattlesnake

Although rattlesnakes are fearsome predators to small birds and rodents, they have to be wary of ophiophagous predators - those that eat snakes. Kingsnakes (which are constrictors) are among the few animals that are immune to rattlesnake venom and therefore capable of turning them into a tasty snack.

Kingsnakes are native to the Americas, being found as far north as Canada and as far south as the northern parts of South America. There are about 45 different subspecies of kingsnake, including the California kingsnake, Florida kingsnake and speckled kingsnake. However, there are also about 70 known subspecies of rattlesnakes, so it seems unlikely that there could have been peaceful co-existence between all of them on board the ark.

Answer: Polar bear

The term ursine refers to the bear family. Polar bears are found in Arctic regions and generally hunt on the sea ice, with ringed and bearded seals comprising their main diet. Inuit mythology named the polar bear, or 'nanook', as the master of bears who had the ability to decide whether or not bear-hunters would be successful.

Arctic foxes also feed on ringed seals (particularly the seal pups) but are classed as vulpine mammals. Grey wolves are lupine animals and primarily eat ungulates such as deer or sheep. The blue whale is the largest known animal on earth, but generally feeds on very small aquatic crustaceans.

Polar bears are one of the strongest and most fearsome animals on the planet so it's likely that the majority of animals on Noah's ark would have tried to maintain a healthy distance from them. Luckily, being aquatic mammals, the ringed seals wouldn't have needed a place on the ark and would likely have chosen to remain in the sea - at a safe distance from the polar bears!

Answer: Badger

Although all the possible answer options are known for their distinctive black and white stripes, only the badger is ever likely to be seen eating hedgehogs in the British countryside. Specifically, badgers found in Britain are European badgers (Meles meles) identifiable by their stocky grey body and black and white striped head.

In Britain, badgers are often unpopular with farmers due to the scientific link made between bovine tuberculosis in badgers and the spread of the disease in cattle. Culls carried out by farmers and other threats to the species resulted in badgers being protected by law; the Protection of Badgers Act, 1992 made it a criminal offence to kill, injure or interfere with a badger sett without a licence.

Answer: Meerkat

Despite their name, meerkats are not cats but are members of the mongoose family (and are no relation to geese whatsoever). On first appearances meerkats may appear to be cute and cuddly but they are actually quite aggressive little animals. Their apparently close social and family relationships hide the fact that meerkats will sometimes kill the offspring of other members of the group. In some particularly gruesome cases pregnant females have been known to kill and eat other females' pups.

Meerkats would probably have been one of the least fearsome predators on board the ark, and plenty of other animals (and the humans) would likely have been grateful for the removal of any venomous scorpions.

Answer: Dingo

Emus are the largest bird species native to Australia. Their location means that they are at risk from being attacked by dingoes, another well-known Australian species. Similar in appearance to ostriches (the largest bird species in the world), they defend themselves against dingoes by leaping into the air so the dingo can't get at their long neck or head. Emus are flightless birds so they would have needed a spot on Noah's ark as, although they can swim, they probably couldn't have managed 40 days at sea...

Dingoes are an iconic Australian species and appear in many aboriginal carvings and cave paintings. However, they have developed a bit of a bad reputation for their attacks on humans - so Noah and his family probably wouldn't have been in a huge rush to pet this particular dog.

The three wrong answers are all breeds of domestic dog. The Armant is also known as the Egyptian Sheepdog, a Barbet is a rare French water dog, and a Kangal dog is a type of Turkish mastiff.

Answer: Baboon

Luckily for the vervet monkey, it probably makes up only a small proportion of the diet of the average baboon. Baboons are actually mainly herbivorous animals and also have a variety of other prey in their diet, such as fish, birds and small antelopes. Vervet monkeys do have to look out for a range of other potential predators though, particularly pythons which are capable of swallowing them whole!

Old World monkeys are generally native to Africa and Asia and belong to the superfamily Cercopithecoidea. They are generally distinguished from the New World monkeys of Central and South America by the shape of their nose, teeth and ears; although the lack of a prehensile tail in Old World monkeys is probably the most immediately obvious difference. Bonobos, orangutans and gorillas are classed as apes and are members of the superfamily Hominoidea.

Answer: Nile crocodile

Thankfully for the reputation of the regal lion, Nile crocodiles would likely have got on just fine during the 'Great Flood' and wouldn't have needed to take refuge on Noah's Ark. In any event, the lion probably wouldn't have been hugely worried about the presence of the crocodile, since they usually only prey on other predatory species, such as lions, as a last resort.

Despite its name, the Nile crocodile is found across Africa, from the Nile delta in Egypt right down to South Africa, including islands such as Madagascar and Zanzibar. It is the second largest living species of crocodile after the saltwater crocodile, which is mainly native to south-east Asia. Despite being commonly described as 'kings of the jungle', lions actually inhabit savannahs and dry wooded areas. Although lions are most commonly associated with Africa, the Asiatic lion is found in India's Gir Forest.