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April Mini Challenge

This is an optional mini challenge for our UNO players.

Part One

Some animals have (seriously) unfortunate names. We therefore did not want to inflict them upon you as team names. They do deserve attention as well however and that's where the April mini challenge comes into play.

You will be reading books for tasks relating to some less than lucky beasties - you will also get some photos and details on them for your pleasure.

â—� Every book read, i.e. every task completed, is worth 10 points.
â—� Each book can be used for one task only.
â—� Books for tasks can be finished in any order.
â—� If your team completes all the tasks, you get 30 bonus points.

Part Two

All those extraordinary animals used for team names. If you haven't done any exploring of the lovely pictures posted for each team, now is your chance! You will be reading books for tasks relating to the beasties borrowed for fellow teams - have a browse through the teams, if you haven't already done so, to get a visual on these spectacular animals.

For each team name, you can read two books, choosing two of the following options:

â—� Read a book with the entire name of the animal in title or text.
â—� Read a book with a part of the animal's name in the title. (This obviously doesn't work for all team names.)
â—� Read a book with a cover representing (any of) the animal's colour(s).
â—� Get creative! Find a way to connect your book to the team name / animal in some way.

For example:
For Team Honduran White Bat, you could have the following options:
1. You find "Honduran White Bat" in either a book's title or somewhere in the text. The entire name, not just a part of it.
2. You read a book with "white" or with "bat" in the title. Not in the text.
3. You read a book with a white cover.
4. You read a book that is set in Honduras, for example, as it is a Honduran white bat, and not a Slovenian or Chinese white bat.

Another example:
For Team Boatbill, you could have the following options:
1. You find "Boatbill" in either a book's title or somewhere in the text.
2. You read a book with either "boat" or "bill" in the title, as both parts of the animal's name are an actual word.
3. You read a book with a blue cover or with a white cover, for example.
4. You find a fabulous other connection - i.e. you're being creative.

â—� Every book read, i.e. every task completed, is worth 10 points.
â—� Each book can be used for one task only.
â—� Books for tasks can be finished in any order.
â—� If your team completes all the tasks, you get 30 bonus points.


The rest of the usual fineprint

â—� Books can be started at any point since the start of the UNO challenge (Feb 1).
â—� Books need to be finished after the start of this mini challenge on April 12, 9am UTC and before May 1 at 9am UTC (when UNO sadly comes to an end).

â—� Books used for this mini challenge do not need to be separate books from what you are claiming for your UNO hands.
â—� The usual book length rules apply.
â—� Team spreadsheets will be updated with a mini challenge tab so that you can track your books and claim your points.

Part One

Tasks

Bony-Eared Assfish

The bony-eared assfish is actually a type of cusk-eel, an eel-like fish that resembles a glorified tadpole, with a bulbous head and a tapering tail. Like many other deep-sea creatures, assfish bodies are soft and flabby, and their skeleton is light and reduced. A lack of food and high pressure at depth may make generating muscle and bone difficult.
Tasks:
1. Read a book where someone doesn't ever seem to use the bathroom. (You know those books, where references to going to the bathroom or behind a tree are non-existent, even if they travel for weeks.)
2. Read a book with at least one ear on the cover. (It doesn't need to be a cover with just an ear. The ear can be attached to a person or even an animal. You just clearly need to able to see the ear.)

Penis Snake

The penis snake (Atretochoana) is the largest tetrapod to lack lungs, double the size of the next largest. Caecilians such as Atretochoana are limbless amphibians with snake-like bodies, marked with rings like those of earthworms. The skull is very different from those of other caecilians, giving the animal a broad, flat head. Its nostrils are sealed, and it has an enlarged mouth with a mobile cheek.
Tasks:
3. Read a book where someone owns or sees a snake, or where reference is made to a snake. (Let your imagination fly.)
4. Read a book a skull on the cover.

Common Cockchafer

The cockchafer is a type of flying beetle, growing up to 3 centimeters long and sometimes called a ‘doodle-bug� or Maybug or Maybeetle. The name "cockchafer" can be understood to mean "large plant-gnawing beetle" and is applicable to its history as a pest animal.
Tasks:
5. Read a book that is not suitable for children.
6. Read a book set in May - or spring in general.

Pink Fairy Armadillo

The Pink Fairy Armadillo is the smallest armadillo species in the world. About the size of a dollar bill, it is a nocturnal creature from central Argentina. It isn’t actually a fairy, but it may be just as hard to study: It spends most of its life underground, and sightings in the wild are extremely rare. As a result, scientists know little about its population size or trends.
Tasks:
7. Read a book featuring a scientist.
8. Read a book with a pink cover.

Naked Mole Rat

There are many different kinds of mole rats. The best known is probably the naked mole rat, whose hairless, tubular, wrinkled body makes it appear a bit like a tiny walrus—or perhaps a bratwurst with teeth. Naked mole rats are rodents, but they live in communities like those of many insects.
Tasks:
9. Read a book where someone ends up (practically) naked (there can be a lot of reasons for this, be creative).
10. Read a book where someone lives in a community.

Sparklemuffin

Two stunning new species of peacock spiders were found in Australia in 2015. Pictured is the one named ‘sparklemuffin� after the bright bluish and reddish stripes on its abdomen. It may look very cool, and have some of natures� warning red on its abdomen, but the sparklemuffin isn’t one of the most venomous spiders around. Less than a quarter-inch long (five millimeters), male peacock spiders are known for their bright colors and a rolling-shaking mating dance that would make Miley Cyrus jealous. Check out the Skeletorus' colouring as well!
Tasks:
11. Read a book with a character who likes to bake.
12. Read a book with a blue cover.

Vampire Squid

Though it resembles both, the vampire squid is neither a squid nor an octopus. It is a unique animal that has been separated by scientists into its own group. Like many of its relatives, the vampire squid has eight arms and two tentacles. It does not suck or drink blood, and instead gets its common name from its dark color and the skin that connects the arms, resembling a cape. This species lives in the nearly completely dark waters of the mesopelagic zone.
Tasks:
13. Read a book featuring vampires.
14. Read a book with a black cover.

Mountain Chicken

The mountain chicken (Leptodactylus fallax) is not a chicken. It is a frog. Officially named the Giant Ditch Frog and locally known as a mountain chicken (for its large size and the fact that it is eaten for food), the mountain chicken is a frog that lives in Dominica and Montserrat.
Tasks:
15. Read a book where a characters lives in or takes a trip to the mountains.
16. Read a book with a green cover.

Ice Cream Cone Worm

Pectinariidae, or the trumpet worms or ice cream cone worms, are a family of marine polychaete worms that secrete a kind of glue from their glands that is used to stick sand and shell pieces together to eventually create a tube to live in resembling ice cream cones or trumpets. These structures can be up to 5 centimetres (2 in) long.
Tasks:
17. Read a book where someone eats or sells ice cream.
18. Read a book with a character who lives at or takes a trip to the beach.

Satanic leaf-tailed Gecko

The satanic leaf-tailed gecko is a nocturnal species only found in Madagascar, where it’s also known as the eyelash leaf-tailed gecko or the fantastic leaf-tailed gecko. The tail can be shed to trick predators. The gecko occurs in a variety of colors, including hues of purple, orange, tan and yellow, but is often mottled brown, with small black dots on the underside that help to distinguish it from similar species.
Tasks:
19. Read a book where a great deal of the story/action takes place at night.
20. Read a book with a red cover.

Fried Egg Jellyfish

Fried Egg Jellyfish, sometimes also called Egg-Yolk Jellies, are jellyfish that sport a smooth translucent bell that has an elevated yolk-yellow bell at the center. This distinctive bell is what gives this jellyfish their name, as it looks like a cracked egg or an egg sunnyside up floating through the water.
Tasks:
21. Read a book where someone eats or makes breakfast.
22. Read a book with a yellow cover.

Spiny Lumpsucker

All members of the Cyclopteridae family are called ‘lumpsuckers�. The ‘lump� portion of their name relates to their looks of being a round lump of flesh. The ‘sucker� part refers to the fish’s modified pelvic fins that act as adhesive discs so they can stick onto rocks and remain attached. Some species also have spines on them, leading to the full name of spiny lumpsucker.
Tasks:
23. Read a book where a character is considered to be attached to someone, or with a clingy character.
24. Read a book with a purple cover.

Tasks - continued


Sarcastic Fringehead

Why it’s sarcastic nobody knows, but the sarcastic fringehead is an aggressive small fish with a giant mouth that it uses to battle for territory with other fringeheads. This fish is a tube blenny, so called because they live in burrows or tube-like structures created by other animals. In the case of this species, the shelters are those created by burrowing clams or by empty snail shells. Some individuals have even been observed living inside soda bottles or other manmade materials.
Tasks:
25. Read a book featuring a sarcastic character.
26. Read a book with an orange cover.

Blobfish

Out of water the blobfish is aptly named, as it’s one big gelatinous blob, but blobfish look almost unrecognizable underwater. These tadpole-shaped fish have bulbous heads, large jaws, tapered tails, and feathery pectoral fins. Rather than scales, they have loose, flabby skin. They don’t have strong bones or thick muscle—instead, they rely on the water pressure to hold their shape together. That’s why blobfish collapse into a squishy mush when they are pulled up to the surface.
Tasks:
27. Read a book with a character who simply has no luck, or good fortune.
28. Read a book where a character's world collapses, or where everything a character thought to be true turns out to be wrong. (There can be lots of interpretations for this. Use your own imagination and judgement.)

Colon Rectum

One of the most unflattering names in the animal kingdom? The colon rectum is a rounded fungus beetle found worldwide, and seems to have done nothing whatsoever to deserve its name, poor thing.
Tasks:
29. Read a book with a two-word title.
30. Read a book with a brown cover.

Moustached Puffbird

The moustached puffbird has small tufts of white feathers around its beak (hence the ‘moustached�) and is plump, round, and fluffy (hence the puffbird). The moustached puffbird is found in the Andes, in northern and northwestern Venezuela through Colombia and slightly into northern Ecuador. It is primarily a bird of the undergrowth of humid and wet forests, though it also occurs along the edges of forest and in open woodland. It usually stays within 6 m (20 ft) of the ground.
Tasks:
31. Read a book where a character has a moustache or beard.
32. Read a book with a white cover.

Pleasing Fungus Beetle

There are over 2,000 different species of pleasing fungus beetle (erotylidae), named after their habit of feeding on fungus, along with plant matter. Some are important pollinators, while a few have gained notoriety as pests of some significance. Most are inoffensive animals of little significance to humans.
Tasks:
33. Read a book with an inoffensive character, i.e. someone who is considered to be pleasing.
34. Read a book featuring a pest, or a disease/illness.

Slippery Dick

Is the ‘slippery dick� an insult, a cocktail, or a fish? It’s a type of wrasse native to shallow, tropical waters of the western Atlantic Ocean. It has a thin, elongate body with a terminal mouth, and its body coloration has three phases during its life: juvenile, initial, terminal. During all these phases, the slippery dick's coloration changes and becomes more pronounced.
Tasks:
35. Read a book where someone drinks or makes a cocktail.
36. Read a book with 3 things that are the same on the cover. (This can be 3 items/plants/people/etc.)

Strange-tailed Tyrant

The reason for the ‘strange-tailed� portion of this bird’s name is obvious enough, but why is it a tyrant? Simple, this is a species of bird in the family Tyrannidae. It is found in northeastern Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and three small separated localities in southern Brazil. Its natural habitat is subtropical, tropical, dry lowland, or grassland. It is threatened by habitat loss, and is mostly extinct.
Tasks:
37. Read a book featuring a tyrant.
38. Read a book set in South America.

Tasseled Wobbegong

The tasselled wobbegong is a flat, well-camouflaged shark that sits motionless on the seafloor, waiting for unsuspecting prey to swim a bit too close. It is a member of the carpet shark family, named for their seafloor-dwelling behavior. With its blotchy coloration and the highly branched skin flaps that disguise its mouth and head, the tasselled wobbegong perfectly blends in to its surroundings on coral reefs along the northern shore of Australia and throughout the islands of New Guinea and Indonesia.
Tasks:
39. Read a book set in Australia.
40. Read a book where someone goes for a swim.

Tufted Titmouse

A little gray bird with an echoing voice, the Tufted Titmouse is common in eastern deciduous forests and a frequent visitor to feeders. The large black eyes, small, round bill, and brushy crest gives these birds a quiet but eager expression that matches the way they flit through canopies, hang from twig-ends, and drop in to bird feeders.
Tasks:
41. Read a book with a beard on cover. (The beard can be on a person or an animal. It just needs to be clearly recognisable as a beard.)
42. Read a book with a gray cover.

Puddingwife

The Puddingwife is a resident of all Mexican waters of the Atlantic Ocean including the Gulf of Mexico and the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in the Caribbean. Over the course of its life, it transitions from female to male, changing colour as it transitions from phase to phase. They reach a maximum of 51 cm (20 inches) in length. They have 2 pairs of enlarged canine teeth on their lower jaw.
Tasks:
43. Read a book with two people on the cover. (Not more, not less. Age/gender doesn't matter. Just two people.)
44. Read a book that is MPG LGBT/LGBTI or any variation thereof. (MPG Queer accepted as well.)

Slowpoke

Athetis tarda, or also known as the slowpoke moth, is a moth of the family Noctuidae. It is found in North America and its habitat consists of oak woodlands. The wingspan is 23�35 mm and they blend in quite well with their surroundings.
Tasks:
45. Read a book that could be considered slow. (This can mean various things for various people. Use your own judgment.)
46. Read a book set in North America.

Hellbender

Snot otters. Lasagna lizards. Allegheny alligators. With nicknames like these, you'd think the actual animal, a salamander more commonly known as a hellbender, would be a natural poster child for endangered wildlife. Instead, hellbenders live quiet lives tucked away under large rocks in the mountain streams of eastern North America, from Arkansas to New York. Ranging in color from mottled olive-gray to chocolate brown with rust-colored splotches, the nocturnal amphibians can easily be mistaken for rocks, if they're seen at all.
Tasks:
47. Read a book with a rock on the cover.
48. Read a book with a character who (usually) leads a quiet life.

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