The Bottom Dwellers Trivia Quiz

Answer: midge (Parochlus steineni)

A midge is an insect that looks similar to a mosquito, however it lacks the biting mouth parts. Ticks and mites do not fly.

Answer: leopard seal

July, 22 2003 was the date of the first known fatal attack by a leopard seal on a human. It was on British Scientist Kirsty Brown while snorkeling near Rothera research station.

Leopard seals are second on the food chain of Antarctica. Their only known predator, other than man, is the killer whale. Leopard seals catch penguin by the feet, and skin them alive by shaking and beating them against the ocean surface before eating them.

Answer: wingless midge (Belgica antarctica)

A Belgica antarctica is approximate 6 mm long. The lack of wings help it to stay firmly anchored to land even during high winds, which are frequent in Antarctica. Other adaptations are that the larvae can survive freezing and can survive without oxygen for two weeks.

Seals and penguins, while they do spend a limited amount of time on land breeding and raising their young, spend the bulk of their time in the ocean. Therefore, they're classified as marine animals like whales.

Answer: sea spiders

Sea spiders aren't arachnids like land spiders and scorpions, but a separate class called pycnogonids. The 100 species of Antarctic sea spiders are more diverse and unusual than anywhere else on earth. The 10-legged sea spider has an extra body segment. There is one species that is the size of a plate.

None of the others are arthropods, which have an exoskeleton. It is a group that include insects, crustacean like crabs and lobster, centipedes, millipedes and spiders.

Answer: emperor penguins

Emperor penguins choose the worst weather in the world to raise their young. The males incubate a single egg for two months while the females go out to sea. By the time the females return, the males have endured the harsh Antarctic winter without eating for approximately four months relying on stored fat reserves.

Answer: gentoo penguin

There are only four species of penguin that breed on the Antarctic mainland. They are the gentoo, emperor, Adélie and chinstrap penguins. Macaroni, rock hopper and king penguins breed on the nearby islands.

Gentoos have the largest tail of any penguin, and are one of the few species of penguin in which the female is smaller than the male. They are, also, the fastest underwater swimming bird.

The Fiordland penguin is native to New Zealand and the others in the answer section are native to where their names indicate.

Answer: guano (droppings) color

Pink guano is an indication of krill-eating such as Adélie and chinstrap penguins. Fish-eating penguins like the emperor penguin produce white guano. Green guano is an indication that the penguin is living off the contents of its stomach such as when it is incubating eggs.

Answer: south polar skua

A skua is a predatory seabird. There are two varieties of skua that inhabit Antarctica, the Antarctic or brown skua and the south polar skua. Skuas nest near Adélie penguins, feeding on their eggs and fledglings in addition to other scrap meat it may find.

Great white sharks live in waters with a temperature range of 54°F to 75°F. The Antarctic is too cold for them with temperature averaging between of 33°F and 30°F. The southern right whale and crabeater seal feed on krill.

Answer: sliding on their bellies and pushing with their feet

Penguins, while sliding on their bellies, use their feet as oars. They don't slide down hill exclusively. They, also, toboggan across snowfields. Adélie penguins can waddle longer distances at about 1.5 miles per hour. They can easily double that speed by tobogganing.

Answer: krill

Crabeater seals have teeth designed specifically for eating krill. Each tooth has five points. The upper and lower set interlock forming a sort of sieve that retains krill but allow the seawater to escape. They are the most numerous seal species in the world.

Answer: lack of webbed feet

Sheathbills are not true sea birds. The lack of webbed feet prevents them from swimming and fishing for food. They are scavengers. They have been known to steal food from penguin chicks by pushing them out of the way when the parents are regurgitating food. The food drops to the ground and is quickly scoffed.

Answer: wandering albatross

At over 11 feet, the wandering albatross has the largest wingspan.

The blue-eyed shag is noted for maintaining a nest year round in open ocean areas. They do not venture far out to sea.

The kelp gull is the only gull to inhabit Antarctica.

Emperor penguins are the deepest diving bird. It routinely dives to depths between 100 and 150 meters. The deepest dive ever recorded was a whopping 535 meters.

Answer: whaling

Whaling decreased the baleen whale population thereby increasing the krill population that baleen whales feed on. The ozone hole, pollution, and global warming have all been blamed for a recent decline in krill.

Answer: sperm whale

Blue, humpback and right whales are baleen whales. They are filter feeders eating krill and plankton.

Answer: crabeater seal

Next to man crabeater seals are thought to be the most numerous large mammal on the planet. Each individual crabeater consumes 20 to 25 times it body weight in krill each year. It is estimated that over 63 million tons of krill are consumed by crabeaters each year, this is more than twice as much as all the baleen whales combined.

An individual blue whale can consume 4 to 6 tons of krill a day during the high feeding season.

Answer: krill

It has been reported by the University of Hull's Scarborough Centre for Coastal Studies that krill "parachute" multiple times at night in an effort to avoid predators rather than once a day as previously thought. This means they deposit more carbon deep into the ocean through their waste than previously thought. It is an amount that equals the emissions of 35 million cars.

Jellyfish and squid are not crustaceans, nor is phytoplankton. Phytoplankton is a plant and major food supply for krill. Therefore, it plays a significant role in removing atmospheric carbon, too.

Answer: proteins that inhibit ice crystals

Icefish are very unique creatures. Their blood and other fluids contain glycoproteins that act as an antifreeze. Ocean water contains a high level of salts, which lowers the temperature it freezes at. The Antarctic Ocean is usually 1 to 2 degrees below zero centigrade. Vertebrates have a much lower salt concentration in their bodily fluids than the ocean. Without some other sort of protection the water in bodily fluids and cells would freeze, forming ice crystals that would destroy cells an eventually kill.

Gylcoproteins while often called antifreeze compounds, do not work like traditional automotive antifreezes by lowering the temperature water freezes at. They prevent large ice crystal formation without lowering the freezing point of water.

They got the name icefish from their pale color, which is caused by the lack of hemoglobin. Hemoglobin gives blood its red color and transports oxygen. Colder water contains more dissolved oxygen than warm water. This is one of the reasons they can still survive without hemoglobin. They are deep-water fish, so they have no swim bladder to increase buoyancy. Like other fish they do have dorsal fins.

Answer: Weddell seal

The southern most colonies are protected from predation by leopard seals and killer whales. The seals are named after James Weddell, British commander of a seal expedition in Antarctica. They are routinely infected by parasites. Their remains are often used to study worm and parasite infestations. They are known to eliminate infestations by regurgitating parasites.

Answer: killer whale (orca)

Blue whales and fulmars are migratory, breeding in the summer then moving north for warmer weather in the winter.

Arctic terns breed during the summer in the Arctic tundra. In early autumn, they then fly south 12,000 miles to the edge of the Antarctic pack ice. It is just in time for the Antarctica summer.

Orcas do not travel far, but they may travel several hundred miles for seasonal prey. The highest density of orcas, approximately 160,000, can be found around Antarctica.

It is best to keep some distance away from a fulmar's nesting site. It is capable of spitting up a vile yellow liquid from its stomach up to five feet with accuracy.

Answer: colossal squid

The colossal squid, while it has shorter tentacles than the giant squid, is thought to have a larger body tube (mantle). A New Zealand fishing boat caught one measuring 33 feet long which weighed nearly 1090 lbs. The colossal squid's sucker feet are lined with swiveling hooks. The scars on the back of many sperm whales are likely caused by theses hooks.

In the large intestine of sperm whale, a strange substance called ambergris forms around squid beaks. It has a sweet, earthy scent and is occasionally used as fixative for fine perfumes.

Jellyfish are either scyphozoa or hydrozoa. Sea spiders are called pantopoda or pycnogonids.