Black-headed gull (Title Photo)

Dear Readers, as winter comes on apace here in the UK, I have been thinking about how many plants are animals have the words ‘white’ or ‘black’ in their names, even when they aren’t either colour. The black-headed gull, for example, has a chocolate-brown head, and doesn’t even have that for most of the year.

So your challenge this week is a) to say whether the organisms depicted in the photos below belong in the ‘white’ or the ‘black’ category, and to make things fair there are eight of each. An extra point if you can name the critter/plant, giving a possible maximum score of 32 points.

All answers in the comments by 5 p.m. UK time on Friday 3rd December please, and the answers will be posted on Saturday December 4th. As usual I will make your answers disappear as soon as I see them, but write them down before looking at the comments if you are easily influenced by other people’s brilliance.

So, if you think the creature in photo 1 belongs in the black category, your answer is 1) Black. If you think that it’s a black-tailed spooglehound, you can put that in as well for an extra point.

Onwards!

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