Ol' Rabbit River Just Keeps Rollin' Quiz

Answer: Snake

The Snake begins in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA, then flows through Oregon, Idaho and Washington. With steep mountains and deep canyons, it is part of the largest North American river system to empty, eventually, into the Pacific Ocean. Shoshone and Nez Perce peoples have lived along this river since prehistoric times. In its best years it ran millions of salmon.

The answer isn't Marilyn, though a curvy gesture does suggests a bombshell beauty.

Answer: Little Apes

Apies means apes. The river was named by early settlers, the Ndebele, after a Chief Tshwane ("Little Ape"), later translated to apies. The river runs through the National Zoological Gardens of South Africa in Pretoria, one of the top ten zoos in the world. Jane Goodall was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, in part for her work with chimpanzees, an ape closely related to humans. An aepyornis is a flightless bird in Madagascar. Gorillas were the subject of studies by Dian Fossey.

Answer: British Columbia, Canada

Moose (called elk in Europe) are found in the upper Northern Hemisphere, excluding the arctic, in Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, with fewer in the Baltic states. Strangely there's a handful in New Zealand. Disappearing marshlands, deforestation and over-hunting of both wolves and humans have eradicated the elk from much of its former range. Since elk are built for deep snow and relative cold, British Columbia is the correct answer.

However, the "elk" in British Columbia are a different animal entirely, the wapiti.

Answer: Tigris

Tigris is Greek, from the old Persian Tigra. The Tigris is 1,850 km (1,150 miles) long and runs swift. It was subject to unexpected floods, but from early times the floodplain was irrigated and cultivated. Mosul and Baghdad, Iraq both sit on the Tigris banks, as did grand cities of Mesopotamia.

The Tigris is longer than the Snake, but much shorter than the Yellow, Mississippi, or Nile. Modern dams and irrigation projects in Turkey were controversial due to negative impact on the river downstream.

Answer: New Mexico

The Rio del Oso is found in New Mexico, USA, in the volcanic NE Jemez Mountains. It was probably the New Mexico Black Bear that inspired the name. The Rio del Oso area has been a hotbed, so to speak, for archeological study.

Answer: Canada

Beaver River is in Ontario, Canada, though across Canada and in at least five states of the northern USA Beaver Rivers are found. Beaver River in British Columbia is a tributary of the Columbia River. Its valley is the route of the Trans-Canada Highway and the Pacific Railway, located in Glacier National Park.

The beaver shaped the economic and exploratory history of Canada, and it is their national symbol.

Answer: South Africa

Along the Olifants Rivers in South Africa you can tour rugged mountain terrain, go on safari, fish or follow a wine route. Millions of local people depend on these rivers, but due to mining, power stations, irrigation, pollution and a lack of rain, the Olifants are repeatedly depleted. Similarly, more than half of South Africa's wetlands have disappeared. An interesting effect of river depletion occurs when hippos immerse themselves in small pools they find along the Olifants.

Their dung collects, decomposes, and then suffocates the fish.

Answer: Great Plains

The Great Plains are vast flat lands of grass and steppe in the central-western US and Canada. Some geographers include territory in Mexico, and Great Plains are sometimes called prairie or High or Low Plains. The Loup River is 1,800 miles (2,900 km) long with tributaries of North, Middle, and South Loup, creatively called "the Loups". For centuries a band of the Pawnee Native Americans called the Wolf People lived there.

In the mid-1800s most of the Wolf people were relocated to a reservation in Oklahoma, where in 2011 Pawnee economic contribution to the state was about $10.5 million.

The lands drained by the Loups became primarily agricultural.

Answer: Cow

At the city of Komatipoort, South Africa, the Komati joins the Crocodile (one of many rivers called crocodile in Africa). The Komati is named after the cow because this important river always provided sustenance, or milk, to the people. Many tourists and fisherman flock to Komatipoort.

Answer: Victoria Island

Victoria Island is the eighth largest island in the world, and Canada's second largest, just slightly bigger than Britain. The Nanook River is in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and runs from the Northwest Territories to Nunavut. Nanook is an Inuit word for the "master of bears", the polar bear. Bear Island, Antarctica was named for a 1940 expedition flagship, as there are no bears in the Antarctic.