Quiz | Easy like Sunday morning: Famous Animals! 

1. On November 3, 1957, a two-year-old mongrel from the streets of Moscow was chosen to be part of a historic mission. Named Laika, she was believed to be a husky-terrier. From 5.30 a.m. onwards for about six hours, what was she the first animal to do?

2. Bruce Ramer was a lawyer who worked with one of the most successful movie directors of all time. While working on an iconic movie, the main villain was named after him, and would go on to inspire countless pop culture tributes. Weighing 547 kg and 25-ft.-long, where would you have seen his namesake?

3. Naruto, an endangered Celebes crested macaque from Indonesia, was part of an experiment by British nature photographer David Slater. In 2011, he released a series of pictures featuring Naruto, but was embroiled in a copyright issue of who owned the right to the photograph. What had Naruto done to cause this confusion?

4. Dolly was a female Finn-Dorset sheep born under historical circumstances on July 5, 1996, at the Roslin Institute, Scotland. She lived to the age of six and produced many lambs. Though she wasn’t the first animal to be born this way, she was the first mammal (human’s cousin). What was Dolly the very first of?

5. El Jefe is a big cat that was first recorded on a camera in Arizona in 2011. This was very exciting as this species had ceased to exist in the wild for a long time. What type of cat is El Jefe, whose namesake is a popular car brand which is far more common?

6. American scientist Irene Pepperberg worked with Alex, which stood for ‘Avian Language Experiment’, at the University of Arizona. Over many years Alex could not only identify 50 different objects, but could understand concepts of smaller, bigger, different, etc. With a vocabulary of over 100 words, what type of animal was Alex?

7. Jackie was a lion who was brought from Sudan to the United States in 1916. He was recorded roaring three times and then looking to his left. His roar was the first ever heard in which iconic context that exists till date?

8. Sharing a characteristic with Moby Dick, probably the most famous whale ever, Migaloo is a humpback whale first spotted along the Australian coast in 1991. His iconic appearance and popularity was responsible for an increase in conservation efforts. What is unique about Migaloo?

9. Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson and Benjamin Button are three cats who have their own fan pages, have appeared on Ryan Reynold’s tee shirt, and on the cover of Time magazine, in December 2023. They became an influential part of the recent American elections when their cat-mom took offence to what the Republican nominee for Vice-President said about women with cats. Whose cats are these that have a reputation for style and are known all too well by fans worldwide?

10. Arjuna was an Asian elephant who, since 1959, was a beloved regular feature during a certain festival in an ancient city in Karnataka. In 2012, he outdid all contenders in being able to carry a 750 kg howdah that housed an idol for 5 km. Unfortunately, he passed away last year while trying to capture a wild elephant. At which festival was Arjuna a centre of attraction for seven years?

A molecular biologist from Madurai, our quizmaster enjoys trivia and music and is working on a rock ballad called ‘Coffee is a Drink, Kaapi is an Emotion’. @bertyashley

Quiz | Easy like Sunday morning: Famous Animals! 

Naruto, an endangered Celebes crested macaque in Indonesia, was part of an experiment by British nature photographer David Slater. 

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