Miscellaneous Madness IV Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bottle-Nosed Dolphin

The bottle-nosed dolphin has a ratio of brain weight to body weight that is second only to human beings. On average, human beings have a 2.10% ratio while dolphins come in at 1.17% ratio. Killer whales are slightly less than the dolphin but the poor chimpanzee weighs in at 0.70% ratio.

Answer: All are correct

Witches were accused of having many different "familiars"----dogs, goats, pigs, rats and other small animals or birds. If a suspected person was associated with any type animal, had a pet or kept goats, etc., the animal was likely to end up as a "familiar" if the person was ever charged with witchcraft. Usually, it seemed, the aging and maybe widowed ladies that were accused had a cat as a pet (or a mouser) and this is the reason we associate cats mostly as "familiars".

Answer: 50 percent

And to make it worse, 24-30% of all the above women will experience ongoing abuse. Also according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (1993),in homes where domestic violence occurs, children are abused at a rate of 15 times the average. In 95% of all domestic violence assaults, crimes are committed by men against women.

Answer: Australia

The duckbill platypus is an "odd duck". He/she is a small, aquatic animal. The females are egg laying. He/she has webbed feet and a bill like a duck---hence the name duckbill platypus.

Answer: Hawaii

Coffee---an interesting bean! Coffee cherries are red and are delicious but only the seed (coffee bean) is used because the cherries spoil so quickly. Coffee beans used to be roasted at home in a cast iron frying pan on the stove or over a fire. Coffee is one of the largest commodities traded internationally.

Answer: The brown egg is slightly more nutritious.

Brown feathered chickens lay brown eggs. White chickens such as the White Leghorns lay white eggs. Brown eggs are sometimes more expensive simply because brown hens tend to be larger and require more food. To prevent a hen from laying her eggs in her own little hiding place, an artificial (or even a natural egg) can be placed in a nest to entice the hen to lay her eggs where they can be easily gathered. Have you ever heard of a "nest egg" meaning putting money aside? This is thought to be the origin of the term.

Answer: Whistling

Dolphins routinely respond to each other with identical whistling signals within seconds. The matching of communication signals has been said to be an important step in the evolution of human language and it is hypothesized that dolphins are capable of "vocal learning" which is the prerequisite for the evolution of the spoken language.

Answer: Navajo Indians

The Navajo language code was never broken. Some of the "code talkers" are still alive today.

Answer: Calico or Tortoise-shell

I'd love to give you a snippet of background on this but I don't think you would want to wade through O genes and the fact that a male cat with an O gene is just plain orange but a female can carry an O gene on one of her X chromosomes but not on the other. No, I didn't think you would be interested.

Answer: Cats

Stories appeared in the press after the 1906 earthquake describing the cats' extremely weird behavior. Scientists put down the cat behavior as "old wives tales" and "nonsense". And then, on the fall evening of l989 when another great quake hit San Francisco, the cats once again went crazy and the strange behavior was reported by highly trained people---police, fire service officers, doctors and even scientists.

This time the scientists paid attention and research programs were begun to track the behavior of cats just prior to earthquakes.

By the way, the rats that had become dislodged from their nests during the l906 quake brought a breakout of bubonic plague----as if the San Franciscans didn't already have enough to worry about.