How It Works
Teams must figure out what the categories are and find one more animal from the overall group that fits. These eight animals form another category, and there's one very common animal missing from the puzzle that fits this category. As a solving aide, the animals on the first page and within each paper strip are in alphabetical order. The unknown animals (denoted with question marks) are not in order; they're unknown, so how would we know where they go?!
The 32 animals on the front page are:
| |
|---|
| Antelope | Badger |
| Dog | Duck |
| Pig | Pigeon |
| Wombat | Zebra |
Animal Categories:
| Category | Winged animals |
|---|
| Given animals | Bat, Duck, Gnat, Pigeon, Roadrunner, Rooster |
| Missing animal | Canary |
| Category | Starts with the letter C |
|---|
| Given animals | Canary, Capybara, Cat, Cheetah, Chipmunk, Crocodile |
| Missing animal | Coyote |
| Category | Striped animals |
|---|
| Given animals | Badger, Chipmunk, Lemur, Raccoon, Tiger, Zebra |
| Missing animal | Skunk |
| Category | Rhymes with Cat |
|---|
| Given animals | Bat, Gnat, Meerkat, Muskrat, Rat, Wombat |
| Missing animal | Cat |
| Category | Animal name is also a verb |
|---|
| Given animals | Badger, Bat, Dog, Ram, Rat, Skunk |
| Missing animal | Duck |
| Category | Contains a doubled vowel |
|---|
| Given animals | Ch(ee)tah, (Ee)l, Kangar(oo), M(ee)rkat, Racc(oo)n, W(ee)vil |
| Missing animal | R(oo)ster |
| Category | Chinese Zodiac (e.g. Year of the ...) |
|---|
| Given animals | Dog, Ox, Ram, Rat, Rooster, Tiger |
| Missing animal | Pig |
| Category | Animal names composed of two hidden words |
|---|
| Given animals | (Ant)(elope), (Musk)(rat), (Pant)(her), (Pig)(eon), (We)(evil), (Womb)(at) |
| Missing animal | (Road)(runner) |
| Final Category | Loony Tunes characters |
|---|
| Meta animals | Canary (Tweety), (Wile E.) Coyote, Skunk (Pepe Le Pew), Cat (Sylvester), (Daffy) Duck, Rooster (Foghorn Leghorn), (Porky) Pig, Roadrunner |
| Final animal | (Bugs Bunny) Rabbit |
Solution
BUGS BUNNY
Design Notes
This was one of the earliest attempts of a "group authorship." The group started with just the idea of categorizing animals, and eventually ended up where we were. This puzzle was incredibly fragile once constructed: changing, adding, or removing a single animal would have several ramifications (did it suddenly get included in another category unintentionally, etc.). It got to the point where to finish this puzzle we were looking for a single animal that had a double-vowel, was a compound word, and was NOT winged or striped. (This turned out to be very difficult to accomplish.)
GC Notes
This location (Rosario Beach) would have been hands-down the favorite location, except that the majority of teams got to the location during a thunderstorm. In the middle of the summer! It never fails!
GC was also surprised that more teams needed help identifying the "weevil" than did the "capybara."
