Mad March Monochrome Photo Puzzle

gentle lemur

gentle lemur

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15+ year member
Mad March Monochrome Photo Puzzle

Mad March Monochrome Photo Puzzle

Can you sort these animals into a sensible order?
Every time I finish a puzzle I think it will be the last one. But then I get a fresh idea and start another.

So here are 24 animals which I hope you can identify. As usual, they have something in common, but this time there are no odd-ones-out, which may make things easier. I have again included species from all the groups of vertebrates, and for extra variety I have added a few domestic breeds too. The photos are arranged in random order, the numbers are merely labels to avoid confusion.
The puzzle is simply to sort them into a sensible order. I must confess that I have done a little stretching and squeezing to make all the names fit together: so I should remind you that many species have more than one English name. But that is the only hint I am giving.
I decided to show most of the heads of these animals, but I was afraid of making the puzzle rather too easy, so I have converted my colour photos into black and white images to make things a little harder.
I do have a full colour version and I will publish it here on Thursday 4th March, if I have received 3 or more PMs asking me to do so, unless someone has already has sent me a complete solution. I will be happy to look at PMs with possible answers, but I will not reveal any answers until Friday 5th.
So please do not post any solutions in this thread until after noon (UST/GMT) on Friday 5th.
 
This thread is now open for attempted solutions :)
Does anyone want to see the version of the photos in colour?
 
I think it's time for a couple of hints:
  • all the animals in the photos are adults, except for 20 and 24 which are immature
  • all the animals have names with 2, 3 or 4 words
  • in the most obvious order, the fishes are near the ends and many of the easier ones are near the middle
 
Okay, it’s incomplete, but someone has to start; I reckon that the sequence is alphabetical of the place name in the animals name, so far
A 7 Atlantic Lizardfish
B 18 Border Collie
C17 Cuban Hutia
D 5 Dalmatian Pelican
F 20 Fly River Turtle
G 8 Guinea Turaco
H23 Hereford Cattle
I 11 Great Indian Rhinoceros
J 1 Java Sparrow
K 13 Komodo Dragon
L 9 Luzon Cloud Rat
M 22 Montserrat Oriole
N 16 Natal Red Duiker
O 10 Orinoco Goose
P 14 Lake Patzcuaro Salamander
Q 4 Queensland Koala
R 2 Rocky Mountain Goat
V 24 Visayan Warty Pig
W 6 White Cloud Mountain Minnow
Y 15 Yemen Chameleon
Z 19 New Zealand Scaup

leaving 3, 12, and 21.
 
Arabian Angelfish, Pomacanthus asfur
B
Cheviot Sheep, Ovis aries var. Cheviot
Dalmatian Pelican, Pelecanus crispus
E
F
G
Hereford Cattle, Bos (primigenius) taurus var. Hereford
Indian Rhinoceros, Rhinoceros unicornis
Java Sparrow, Lonchura oryzivora
Komodo Dragon, Varanus komodoensis
Livingstone's Turaco, Tauraco livingstoni
M
Northern Luzon Giant Cloudrunner, Phloeomys pallidus
O
Pig-nosed Turtle, Carettochelys insculpta
Q
Rocky Mountain Goat, Oreamnos americanus
S
T
U
Veiled Chameleon, Chamaeleo calyptratus
White Cloud Mountain Minnow, Tanichthys albonubes
X
Y
Z

3. Palearctic Tortoise, Testudo sp.
4. Koala Bear, Phascolarctos cinereus
7. I can't even figure out which class it is
10.Unknown Goose, Anatidae sp.
14. Axolotl, Ambystoma mexicanum
16. Duiker, Cephalophus sp.
17. Unknown Cavy, Caviidae sp.
18. Unknown Dog Breed, Canis (lupus) familiaris var.
19. New Zealand Scaup, Aythya novaeseelandiae
22. No idea
24. Pig, Sus sp.
 
Tetzoo Quizzer said:
Okay, it’s incomplete, but someone has to start; I reckon that the sequence is alphabetical of the place name in the animals name, so far
. . . . . .
leaving 3, 12, and 21.
Click to expand...
Now that's what I call progress! Well done :)
Your names are almost perfect. Don't forget that the unidentified creatures will have to fill some of the gaps.

@Junklekitteb You've also made progress too and you are correct where @Tetzoo Quizzer went wrong, so that's a bonus :) But I hope you see that for this purpose, it has to be a Fly River turtle, rather than a pig-nosed turtle ;)
 
Thanks, Junglekitteb.
I’ll change A to Arabian Angelfish (21), go for E as Egyptian Tortoise (3), and then for S try White Suffolk Sheep, leaving T as Taiwan Lizardfish. Why no Uganda Kob?
 
Tetzoo Quizzer said:
Thanks, Junglekitteb.
I’ll change A to Arabian Angelfish (21), go for E as Egyptian Tortoise (3), and then for S try White Suffolk Sheep, leaving T as Taiwan Lizardfish. Why no Uganda Kob?
Click to expand...
No Uganda kob because I have no photo, I might have seen one in the Jardin des Plantes in 1972, but I don't remember it. Neither have I ever seen a lizardfish.
I used the Ural owl in my last puzzle, so there is no U creatures and, for obvious reasons, no X creature either. The one you are having the most trouble with has actually been in a fairly recent photo puzzle. Your sheep is misidentified, having chosen 2 British breeds I decided on a breed from a different country, but which is widely kept around the world as well as in the UK.
 
A 21 Arabian Angelfish
B 18 Border Collie
C17 Cuban Hutia
D 5 Dalmatian Pelican
E 3 Egyptian Tortoise
F 20 Fly River Turtle
G 8 Guinea Turaco
H23 Hereford Cattle
I 11 Great Indian Rhinoceros
J 1 Java Sparrow
K 13 Komodo Dragon
L 9 Luzon Cloud Rat
M 22 Montserrat Oriole
N 16 Natal Red Duiker
O 10 Orinoco Goose
P 14 Lake Patzcuaro Salamander
Q 4 Queensland Koala
R 2 Rocky Mountain Goat
S 7 Surinam Toad
T 12 Texel Sheep
V 24 Visayan Warty Pig
W 6 White Cloud Mountain Minnow
Y 15 Yemen Chameleon
Z 19 New Zealand Scaup
 
That's it!
@lintworm has the first complete solution but I think @Tetzoo Quizzer must share the imaginary prize for spotting the theme and getting 20/24 right first time. Congratulations to them both and I hope everyone who tried managed to make some progress with the puzzle.
I must admit that I enjoyed the mental exercise of setting this puzzle. I tried to get some easy ones (H, I, J and K for example) with some harder ones (such as A and E). I wanted to get some mountains,rivers and islands as well as countries and I wanted to have a range of species and a range of places around the world too. And of course I had to find pictures in my collection and to try to make things fair when I cropped them and fitted them into place. I know the Egyptian tortoise was hard because I couldn't really show how small it was or the dome of its shell, but as there was no other obvious E, I trusted that someone would work it out.
In the end I got worried that the whole puzzle was rather too easy - so I decided to take the colour out of the photos to make it harder initially, keeping the colour versions in reserve. I now wonder if that was a mistake.
 
Last edited:
gentle lemur said:
That's it!
@lintworm has the first complete solution but I think @Tetzoo Quizzer must share the imaginary prize for spotting the theme and getting 20/24 right first time. Congratulations to them both and I hope everyone who tried managed to make some progress with the puzzle.
I must admit that I enjoyed the mental exercise of setting this puzzle. I tried to get some easy ones (H, I, J and K for example) with some harder ones (such as A and E). I wanted to get some mountains,rivers and islands as well as countries and I wanted to have a range of species and a range of places around the world too. And of course I had to find pictures in my collection and to try to make things fair when I cropped them and fitted them into place. I know the Egyptian tortoise was hard because I couldn't really show how small it was or the dome of its shell, but as there was no other obvious E, I trusted that someone would work it out.
In the end I got worried that the whole puzzle was rather too easy - so I decided to take the colour out of the photos to make it harder initially, keeping the colour versions in reserve. I now wonder if that was a mistake.
Click to expand...

I do need to thank @Tetzoo Quizzer for solving the minnow and the dog, for the rest I got there too. But in the case of the Surinam Toad, the larger picture was necessary to see it was not some kind of Catfish.... It was surprising it took more time to see the alphabetic order than the locations (I started ordering them by country, lake, region...). Thanks for organizing @gentle lemur !
 
Only 22 gave me problems until I saw the colour version; I was originally thinking Maghreb Magpie! Got the geographical idea quickly, but then struggled with a sequence (not length or area, and global position seemed unlikely). Once alphabetical came to mind, it was then a case of working it out (and deciding the muntjac was actually a duiker!)
 
Why is it only now that I've seen this...I actually think I wouldve done well on this! :P
 
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