Wild Ones 5

Question 1

legalese

Answer 1

the specialized language of the legal profession which is often difficult for most people to understand.

Question 2

Rio de la Plata (Plate River)

Answer 2

a wide estuary on the Atlantic coast of South America at the border between Argentina and Uruguay that is formed by the confluence of the Paraná and Uruguay rivers. The cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo lie on its shores.

MD - A modern translation of the Spanish Río de la Plata is “Silver River,” referring not to color but to the riches of the fabled Sierra del Plata thought to lie upstream. Although there is no evidence that any such mountain range of silver ever existed, the region around the Río de la Plata was indeed rich in silver mines. The closest mountain range that resembles the myth of the “mountain range of silver” is the silver mine of Potosí in modern Bolivia, a town known for its rich silver resources found on the town’s mountain range.

Question 3

turbine

Answer 3

a machine for producing continuous power in which a wheel or rotor, typically fitted with vanes, is made to revolve by a fast-moving flow of water, steam, gas, air, or other fluid.

Question 4

gypsum

Answer 4

Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O.[3] It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer, and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard chalk and wallboard.

• Across the river, the white wind turbines tumbled like modern dancers, and the gypsum plant’s sky-blue water tower stood in faint relief.” (189)
• MD - it is what makes blackboard chalk.

Question 5

sacrosanct

Answer 5

too important and respected to be changed, criticized, etc.

• “Maybe the most imposing line is the one we imagine between ourselves and nature-the belief that there is such a thing as pristine nature, and that it is sacrosanct, and that any changes we trigger in it can only be disfiguring.” (192)
• MD

Question 6

whooping crane

Answer 6

The whooping crane (Grus americana), the tallest North American bird, is an endangered crane species named for its whooping sound. In 2003, there were about 153 pairs of whooping cranes. Along with the sandhill crane, it is one of only two crane species found in North America.

• The whooping crane stands five feet tall, with a wingspan as long as eight feet. It is the tallest North American bird-a sixty-million-year-old species and one of the few living relics of all that vanished, Pleistocene-era megafauna. ‘ “This is a bird,” Robert Porter Allen wrote, “that cannot compromise or adjust its way of life to ours. Could not by its very nature; could not even if we had allowed it the opportunity, which we did not….Without meekness, without a sign of humility, it has refused to accept our idea of what the World should be like.” ‘ (197)

Question 7

ornithologist

Answer 7

a person who studies or is an expert on birds. “Allen was an ornithologist who was going to tremendous lengths to revive the species in the wild. Seeing the conditions there, Allen pleaded with George Doublass at least of feed the whooping cranes live blue crabs, which is what whooping cranes like to eat in the

Question 8

pleistocene megafuana

Answer 8

Pleistocene megafauna is the set of large animals that lived on Earth during the Pleistocene epoch and became extinct during the Quaternary extinction event. Megafauna is a term used to describe an animal with an adult body weight of over 44 kg.

Question 9

pleistocene epoch

Answer 9

The Pleistocene epoch lasted from 1.8 million years ago to about 11,700 years ago. It was marked by great fluctuations in temperature that caused the ice ages, with glacial periods followed by warmer interglacial periods. Of the 5 documented ice ages, the most recent ice age occurred during the Pleistocene epoch. Several extinct forms of human, forerunners of modern humans, appeared during this epoch.

Question 10

dire wolf

Answer 10

a large extinct wolf of the Pleistocene epoch that preyed on large mammals.

Question 11

heron

Answer 11

a large fish-eating wading bird with long legs, a long S-shaped neck, and a long pointed bill. on page 202 a heron was mistaken for a whooping crane.

Question 12

noncommittal

Answer 12

: giving no clear indication of attitude or feeling a noncommittal reply He was noncommittal about how the money would be spent.

Question 13

imprinting (of a young animal)

Answer 13

come to recognize (another animal, person, or thing) as a parent or other object of habitual trust. “So he learned about imprinting and raised a brood of Canada geese, imprinting them on himself so that they’d follow him and his plane.” (221)

Question 14

brood

Answer 14

the young of an animal or a family of young; especially : the young (as of a bird or insect) hatched or cared for at one time a hen with her brood of chicks “So he learned about imprinting and raised a brood of Canada geese, imprinting them on himself so that they’d follow him and his plane.” (221)

Question 15

fervid

Answer 15

intensely enthusiastic or passionate, especially to an excessive degree

fervid,” “fervent,” and “perfervid.” “Fervid” and “fervent” are practically synonymous, but while “fervid” usually suggests warm emotion that is expressed in a spontaneous or feverish manner (as in “fervid basketball fans”), “fervent” is reserved for a kind of emotional warmth that is steady and sincere (as in “a fervent belief in human kindness”). “Perfervid” combines “fervid” with the Latin prefix per- (“thoroughly”) to create a word meaning “marked by overwrought or exaggerated emotion,” as in “a perfervid display of patriotism.”

Question 16

epoch

Answer 16

a division of geologic time less than a period and greater than an age

MD - e