The other name of the Jesus Christ Lizard is basilisk - yes, the same as the one in Harry Potter. (Un)fortunately, the real one doesn't have the same abilities as the fictional one. :)
Have you seen a Kakapo?! There's no way that fat little fella is getting airborne! And a Kiwi isn't a parrot. Interestingly, the Kakapo also has the loudest call of any bird; it can be heard up to 7km away. It's also by far the fattest parrot, can live for as long as 120 years and apparently they smell REALLY nice.
Colossal Squids have bigger eyes than blue whales? I did not know that. I kind of figured that as the biggest animals the whales would have the biggest eyes....
Nope, but according to a programme I watched yesterday it's because of whales that the big squids have such big eyes (much larger than the next largest eyes in the animal world, and second only to ichthyosaurs out of all animals known to have existed). Apparently, when sperm whales dive to hunt giant squid they disturb tiny bioluminescent animals as they swim. This causes the whale to be surrounded by a feint blue glow and the giant squid has evolved those huge eyes to detect that glow while it still has a chance to bugger off.
Kakapos are pretty adorable, but sadly extremely endangered. That said, its frankly surprising they have survived this long as they're not capable of just about any useful survival technique.
For a great Kakapo story check out Douglas Adams' (yes, THAT Douglas Adams) "Last Chance to See." His treks to find the Planet's most endangered species. Hilarious and scary at the same time.
The Argentinosaurus is the largest extinct animal to have lived at an estimated weight up to 90 tonnes, which is the average weight of a Blue Whale, a large Blue Whale was recorded at 173 tonnes and other larger Blue Whales (up to 110 ft long) have not been weighed.
A lot of people lifted it up and each person stood on a scale, then they added up all the weights on the scale and subtracted the weight of all the people.......... easy really.
Average density of whales can be determined by measuring the weight versus volume of smaller specimens. From there, you can just take the length and several circumference measurements of the big whale and extrapolate.
No, and we'll almost certainly never discover a bigger land dinosaur due to the square-cube law. The legs will need to become relatively thicker and thicker as the dinosaur gets heavier, and they're already burdensome on some of the larger sauropods that have been discovered. Water helps support weight, so the ceiling on size is larger for water-dwelling animals.
This is, for me, a textbook JP quiz. Has easy clues, has tough ones, but helps you out with quite generous fill-ins. Thanks thewombat. Pitched perfectly IMO.
I also just got a Brita filter.
JESUS CHRIST! A LIZARD!