What Counts as Biggest: teacher key

The Biggest Animals, grade 12 edition, written for 12th grade and up. Biggest by length, weight, height or bone: the record-holders, the fossil challengers and the arguments between them.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What is the longest confirmed length for a blue whale?
   • About 3 meters
   • About 30 meters (answer)
   • About 300 meters
2. Why is Perucetus's weight still argued?
   • It was weighed alive
   • It was never found
   • The estimate ranges from 85 to 340 tonnes and overlaps blue whales (answer)
3. What do baleen plates do when a blue whale lunges?
   • They hold back the krill as water is squeezed out (answer)
   • They crush bones
   • They hold its eyes
4. Why do two sources list different record lengths for the whale shark?
   • One source is a map
   • Whale sharks shrink
   • Detailed documentation of the largest ones is lacking (answer)
5. What is the largest living invertebrate?
   • The giant squid
   • The colossal squid (answer)
   • The honey fungus
6. Which spider has the longer leg span?
   • The giant huntsman spider (answer)
   • The goliath birdeater
   • They are the same

Words

• subspecies: local variety
• vertebrae: backbone bones
• titanosaur: giant dinosaur group
• invertebrate: no backbone
• baleen: whale strainer