Senses Working Overtime Trivia Quiz

Answer: Eagle

Eagles and other birds of prey have superb vision, the best in the animal kingdom. They need to be able to see rodents from 10-15000 feet in the air which is the level at which they fly. They then can fly very fast - some species fly over 100 miles per hour to then catch that food.

Answer: True

Some snakes like pythons and boas have a special organ between the eyes and the nostrils that detects heat. To humans, heat is something that we feel but it has the same properties as light (which humans can see). Snakes have one of these organs either side of the head which allows them to see the body heat of other animals and judge location very accurately even when it is completely dark.

Answer: Mole

A star-nosed mole has poor eyesight (as do all moles). It has a long fleshy nose which has up to 22 projections. These projections switch back and forth very readily, feeling the environment. When one of those projections touches a tasty worm - it's instant food even though the mole cannot see it.

Answer: Taste the environment

A snake has relatively poor eyesight and it does have nostrils to smell. However, it gets more sensory information from its forked tongue. With its tongue it traps scent molecules, then puts its tongue into a special organ in its mouth (called Jacobson's organ) which transfers the particles into a sense of smell in the brain.

Answer: On their feet

These insects have receptors on their feet. Just imagine, they land on something and if it is food it tastes it instantly! They can then use their tongues to feed themselves.

Interestingly, flies have compound eyes which are not so good for vision but are excellent at detecting motion. That is why flies are hard to catch.

Answer: Yes

This fish has over 170,000 taste buds from its head to tail, with many concentrated in the "whiskers" near the mouth. (Human tongues usually have between 2,000 to 8,000 taste buds). Because the catfish feeds on the bottom of the water it is a murky environment with poor visibility, and it needs all the help it can get to find food.

Answer: Human

The owl and cat both have exceptional hearing with their ears and hearing apparatus structured to optimise hearing sounds: cats have large ears that can rotate 180 degrees to pinpoint direction; owls have ear holes above and below the line of the eyes which allows owls to pinpoint the location of a sound very, very quickly. Elephants can hear sounds at much much lower frequencies than humans.

They are the best animals at predicting rain as they can hear it coming long before everybody else. The can also hear a mate calling from over 6 kilometers away.

Answer: Two thirds

The Great White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias) has a long Y-shaped brain that spreads up to 60cm. Its sense of smell is very acute as the are many olfactory (smell-sensing) bulbs along the length of the brain making up 2/3 of its content. A Great White can detect a drop of blood up to a mile away. Even uninjured but nervous fish emit chemicals that sharks can easily detect.

Answer: True

Echolocation allows a bat to "see" its environment even when it is pitch black by emitting ultrasonic clicks and then interpreting the echo the sound waves make after reflection off objects including creatures (food) in their environment. Dolphins have a similar sense where they can locate a coin 75 meters away.

Answer: Cat

Cats are carnivores. They eat meat and really only meat (although they can eat other things). Horses and cows are herbivores - they need to taste the sweetness of the vegetarian diet they eat. As cats only eat meat they have lost the gene that allows them to have taste buds with "sweet" receptors. So just as you can't give chocolate to your dog because it is poisonous, don't waste it on your cat as it cannot taste it. Keep it for yourself - you will enjoy it more than your pets.