Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A panther that isn't quite a panther

Bagheera, the sleek mentor figure in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, is described as a black panther. Here's the twist: a "black panther" is not a separate species at all. It is any big cat - usually a leopard or a jaguar - born with melanism, an excess of dark pigment. Kipling's stories, published in the 1890s, gave Bagheera a backstory in which he was raised in captivity before escaping to the jungle.

A carnival that pokes gentle fun

Camille Saint-Saëns wrote "The Carnival of the Animals" in 1886 as a light-hearted suite for a private carnival concert. It brims with musical jokes: the elephant waltzes, the fossils dance, and the pianists are teased as much as the animals. Worried it might damage his serious reputation, Saint-Saëns allowed only one movement, "The Swan", to be published in his lifetime. The full work appeared after his death.

Why silver is Ag, not Si

The chemical symbol for silver, Ag, comes from the Latin word argentum, which also gives us "argent" and the name of Argentina. Helium, by contrast, takes its symbol He straight from its English name - though the element was first detected in the Sun's spectrum before it was found on Earth. Symbols like these are standardised worldwide so that chemists in any language read the same shorthand.

Rabat, a capital often overlooked

Many travellers picture Casablanca or Marrakech when they think of Morocco, yet the country's capital is Rabat, on the Atlantic coast. It is a quieter city, home to the royal palace and the unfinished Hassan Tower, begun in the twelfth century. Casablanca, meanwhile, remains Morocco's largest city and economic hub - which is exactly why it so often gets mistaken for the capital.