Christmas Photo Puzzle 2021

Christmas Photo Puzzle 2021 by gentle lemur posted 24 Dec 2021 at 4:33 PM

Please view the images at full size if possible.​

18 photos and 18 species to identify. Each image has at least one eye and one nostril visible. In this puzzle all the animals have something in common and there are no odd ones out. As usual, there are several easy identifications to help everyone to start. But some are quite hard, so you will probably need to find the common factor before you can solve them all and some research is likely to be necessary (I suggest starting with Wikipedia, but other sources may be useful too). Remember that a species often has several alternative names.

Once you have all the names, the second challenge is to list your answers in rank order, explain how you have ranked them. Note that some species may be entitled to equal ranking.

I will be happy to look at PMs with possible answers, but I will not reveal any answers until New Years Day. So please do not post any solutions in this thread until after noon (UST/GMT) on Saturday January 1st, 2022.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all ZooChatters.​

 

There are no cats so I'm not playing!

 

Perhaps I will be able to include a catfish in a future puzzle

 

To be more serious, I put a piece of advice in a PM in reply to a member, so to be fair I will repeat it for everyone: I took great care when I wrote the text above and I hope that it will be read equally carefully.

 

Happy New Year!
This thread is now open. Please post your solutions here.

 

A tentative attempt and full of gaps:

A: Lord Derby’s parakeet
B: Lady Ross’ touraco
C: Cuvier's Madagascar swift?
D: Linnaeus' two toed sloth
E: Buffon’s macaw
F: Victoria crowned pigeon
G: Okapi
H: Gouldian finch
I: Queen of Bavaria's conure
J: Bedford takin
K: Rhinoceros ratsnake
L: Emperor tamarin
M: ?
N: Princess of Wales parakeet
O: Prince Alfred’s deer
P: Peters's elephant-nose fish
Q: Pancake tortoise?
R: ?

The names - whether common or scientific of each species - all seem to include an eponym and, given the inclusion of several royals and aristocrats, I propose the following ranking:

Monarchs
Queen Victoria (F)
Kaiser Wilhem II (L)

Queen Consorts
Princess Marie Wilhelmine Auguste (I)
Alexandra of Denmark (N)

Sons of Monarchs
Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (O)

Non-royal Dukes
The 11th Duke of Bedford (J)

Earls and Counts
The 13th Earl of Derby (A)
Le Comte de Buffon (E)

Barons
Baron Cuvier (C)

Knights and Ladies
Lady Ross (B)
Sir Harry Johnstone (G)

'Commoners'
Carolus Linnaeus (B)
Elizabeth Gould (H)
George Albert Boulenger (K)
Wilhem Peters (P)
Gustav Tornier (Q)

 

Well done! A very good effort - but not quite perfect. There are the gaps you have mentioned and one wrong identification. And you have also missed one or two titles (although I'm not going to be too fussy about those, the animals matter more ).

 

A) Lord Derby parakeet
B) Lady Ross' turaco
C) ???
D) Linne's two-toed sloth
E) Great green (Buffon's) macaw
F) Victoria crowned pigeon or it could even be the Sclater's crowned pigeon as they are both named after people
G) Okapi
H) Gouldian finch
I) Sun conure
J) Bedford's takin
K) Rhinoceros ratsnake
L) Emperor tamarin
M) Edward's pheasant
N) Princess Alexandra's parakeet
O) Visayan spotted (Prince Alfred's) deer
P) Peters elephant nose fish
Q) ???
R) Livingston's cichlid

The theme is famous people, who have had animals named after them.

 

Don't think either of these are right, but interested to see where you saw the pheasant similarity? I was looking down the bustard alley for a while for M but still can't seem to put my finger on it. Almost looks like a tinamou or a seriema...

The fish I have no idea but it looks rounder and fatter than a Livingston's cichlid...

 

Now I think about it, it's definitely not an Edward's pheasant as its skin isn't red.

It could be a female peacock-pheasant as I have a photo of a female of the Palawan species at Chester that looks awfully similar. Hang on, the scientific name fits the bill: Polyplectron napoleonis

 

Yep, think you're right. I'll work on the tortoise.

 

Sorry @amur leopard I didn't answer your question.
I went down the pheasant root as its a galliform so my mind instantly thought Edward's pheasant

 

I have a thought now, typical , but I'll let you try and work it out

 

What were you thinking? I was thinking Home's hingeback tortoise but I could well be wrong...

 

I wasn't thinking your guess but that's a great shout.
I was thinking Horsfield's tortoise but it just seems too simple. Not to mention the head looks wrong for it.

 

I wonder if it could be the Central Vietnamese flowerback box turtle (Cuora bourreti). I'd be tempted to put my money on this one.

 

Funnily enough Nimbochromis livingstonii was in the penultimate version of this quiz, but I decided to replace it with photo K. The species in photo R actually has a proportionally slimmer and longer body than N livingstonii. I had a special personal reason for choosing this species.

Well done, that solves the mystery of photo M. I could easily have made this one more obvious by showing a male, but that might have spoiled the fun.

But you weren't wrong Well done! Q is a Home's hingeback.

 

Amazing work on the tortoise @amur leopard

 

R - Blue mbuna, named after Fullerborne?

 

Sorry! Not even Fuelleborn (but not a million miles away either ). By the way blue mbuna is a silly name as the majority of male mbuna are blue.

Here's a tiny clue: species R is named after a person who was born in Penzance.