Ocean Trivia

[Izzy]

So in an attempt to breathe life back into the forums... I propose a trivia bee thread.
The format: Post a question (either "short answer" or "multiple choice"). If you answer a question, you MUST provide a new question for people to guess. Feel free to post more questions and answers as you go. This can also be used as a resource for people to post questions they want to learn the answers to.
No cheating - that means don't look it up on google or any other website. Just go with your best intuition. Explain your answer for us, we want to know how you're thinking.
Number your question. This is so that if there are several "open" questions at once, people will know which one you are answering without having to go back and search, and without you having to quote a bunch of different answers.
Your question must be related to marine science somehow.

So now that that's out of the way, lets start... here's question #1

EDIT: It was requested that I keep a running list of questions (and answers) in this post... I'll be doing that periodically. I will try to post the correct answers in bold so that you can see what has been answered correctly and what hasn't. There is no score-keeping... just answer the questions as you go! And have fun :)

1. Where are a sea star’s (or starfish’s) eyes located? (short answer)
tip of each arm if I recall correctly though not eyes I'd we'd imagine them but collections of photosensitive receptory cells.

2. How many eyes does a cubozoan have?
Cubozoans have 24 eyes, positioned in clusters of 6 on each rhopalium above the statocysts. in each cluster 4 of the eyes (16 in all) are simple eyes while 2 (8 total) are complex eyes.

3. What marine vertebrate that was described during 2009 has a retractible face?
psychedelic frogfish

4. Give the common name of a Carcharodon Carcharias!
Great White Shark.

5. True or False - Blue Whale calls/song have been increasing in frequency (Hz - sound has been getting higher) in recent decades.
False

6. Conidae are venomous marine gastropods (cone snails) with species feeding on worms, snails and fish. However can you tell me the following:

(a) What is the setimated number of species of conidae?
>500 species

(b) the venom is delivered via a hollow dart, what is this dart formed from?
their darts are formed by enrolment of the radula so they are indeed chitinous.

7. What is the deepest place in the ocean and how deep is it?
Challenger Deep/Marianas Trench, 11,032 meters

8. Where (exactly - there's a specific place...) is the largest tides (biggest tidal range) found? How big is the range?
The largest tides in the world are found in the Minas Basin in the Bay of Fundy. The Tidal Range can get to 16 meters (52.4 feet)[b]

9. Stipes of the ______ ________ can grow up to lengths of 100 ft from their holdfast anchor on the rocks.
[b]Giant Kelp, Macrocystis

10. Give three species(non scientific) of jellyfish
Moon jellyfish
Lion's mane jellyfish
Red Helmet jellyfish
Crystal Jellyfish
(and many more)

11. Assuming you were living during the Cretaceous period, where would you dive to find an Elasmosaurus?
Elasmosaurus lived in the Western Interior Seaway, also known as the "Oceans of Kansas". Fossils have been found in Kansas and South Dakota. But it was a plesiosaur-- much like the creature described as the Loch Ness Monster-- a swimming lizard with four fins (shaped somewhat like the pectoral fins of a whale) instead of legs, a stubby tail, a long serpentine neck, and a mouth full of teeth. Since it had lungs, it probably swam just beneath the surface, but it wasn't able to lift its head very high out of the water due to the relative inflexibility of its neck-- so even if the Surgeon's Photo was real, it couldn't have been a plesiosaur.

12. What was so special about the prehistoric shark Helicoprion that distinguished it from any other shark we know about?
its lower jaw teeth arranged like a buzz saw (vertical spiral)

13 According to one of the more recent theories, one of the most significant events leading up to the Permo-Triassic extinction was an overabundance of a certain type of organism in the oceans. What sort of organism was this, and how could this have triggered the Great Dying?
Green sulphur bacteria (Chlorobia: Chlorobiales: Chlorobiaceae) harvested sulphur dioxide that was already present in the atmosphere and turned it into sulfur hydroxide, which turned the water pink and toxic and facilitated holes in the ozone. (See Oarfish's post on page 6 for more explaination)

14. which whale does not have a home in sea world?
a. Belugha Whale
b. Killer Whale
c. Blue Whale
(But they really don't have a "home" there... they belong in the ocean, not Seaworld)

15. A new species of cetacean from the waters of South America was recently redescribed after having been rejected for a long time. What was it?


16. What is the scientific name for the Green Sea Urchin? (hint: It's LONG... has 11 syllables)
Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis

17. In each major ocean basin, there are 4 currents that go either in a counterclockwise or a clockwise direction (depending on hemisphere).
a) What are these things called?
Gyres
b) Which direction to they go in each hemisphere?
In the northern hemisphere it goes counter clock wise and in the southern hemosphere it is clock wise.

18. Sea Otters have the densest fur in the animal kingdom. Approximately how dense is it? (In hairs per square inch)
1,000,000 = 1 million hairs per square inch

19. Name the 5 tidal zonation patterns
1) Supralittoral zone
2)Supralittoral fringe
3) Midlittoral zone
4)infralittoral fringe
5) Infralittoral zone

20. What is the name of the thing (technically it isn't a force) that causes the gyres to rotate?
Coriolis Effect

21. What is the saltiest MARGINAL SEA (remember the definition for marginal sea), and what is its salinity, in parts per thousand?

[Ghandi]

tip of each arm if I recall correctly though not eyes I'd we'd imagine them but collections of photosensitive receptory cells.



2. How many eyes does a cubozoan have?

[Oarfish]

#1. They don't have eyes, if I remember correctly-- at least not in the sense of detailed vision that we are familiar with. Now as for optical receptors of another sort, I don't know. (Shows how well I know my incertebrates... :|

#2. 0. I seem to recall hearing that jellyfish have no brains, so since the eyes would require a brain to translate the visual stimuli, eyes with no brain seem rather useless.

Question #3: What marine vertebrate that was described during 2009 has a retractible face?

(I assume we'll have a simple scoring system...1 point for each correct answer? Any penalties for incorrect answers?)

[Jellyfish123]

Is it the Mediterranean Monk Seal?

Question-
give the common name of a Carcharodon Carcharias!

[Oarfish]

My answer for #4: Great White Shark.

Jellyfish, you missed it, sorry...that seal was described in 1779. The creature I'm looking for was described in 2009.

Edit: Izzy, do you mind updating the first post periodically with the full list of questions, so people don't accidentally read others' answers while rounding up questions?

[Ghandi]

hint: they arent trick questions, starfish do have eyes as do cubozoans.

[Oarfish]

Well, I actually looked up #1 a few minutes ago and found out the answer...

Hmmm....my second guess for #2 would have to be "equal to the number of interradial and perradial canals" (which is normally 8 on a scyphozoan...I don't know anything about cubozoans), but I'm just stabbing in the dark at this point... :|

[Ghandi]

good guess but im afraid not.

[Cetacea]

My answer for #4: Great White Shark.

Jellyfish, you missed it, sorry...that seal was described in 1779. The creature I'm looking for was described in 2009.

Extant?! Or extinct, discovered and described? They found a 'sea monster' fossil that was pretty impressive, huge but the exact description escapes me, can't recall a retractible face though

good guess but im afraid not.

I am going with a lot :D More than 2!

Is it the Mediterranean Monk Seal?

Question-
give the common name of a Carcharodon Carcharias!

Great White shark, and not to be picky but species name is not capitalised so Carcharadon carcharias

I am going to sit in a corner and shut up now before I embarass myself lol, I've been out of the marine for far too long...

[Oarfish]

Question #3: What marine vertebrate that was described during 2009 has a retractible face?

Extant?! Or extinct, discovered and described? They found a 'sea monster' fossil that was pretty impressive, huge but the exact description escapes me, can't recall a retractible face though :confused:

Extant. Not only extant, but it's been observed alive in the wild, retracting its face. And when I say "retractible", I mean it can physically pull its face backward into its body. Hint: It's not a chelonian, although I don't know of any marine chelonians capable of this trick.