Extra extra

Solution

by Ivan Wang

Answers:
AMYGDALAHABITATS

By googling the flavor text, we discover that Extra extra is the scientific name of a species of sea snail. This, in addition to the “×2” indicator next to the images, clues that we’re looking for other scientific names where the genus and species are identical.

The first set of images represents tautonyms, or scientific names where the genus and species are the same word. A useful reference is Wikipedia’s list of tautonyms.

The second set of images are the common names for the tautonyms; these can be found on Wikipedia.

Taking the red and blue circled letters in order from 1-8 gives us two answers to this puzzle: AMYGDALA and HABITATS.

Appendix: Images and animal names

Image 1Scientific NameCommon NameImage 2
ANSER ANSER
GREYLAG GOOSE
AXIS AXIS
CHITAL
DIVES DIVES
MELODIOUS BLACKBIRD
IDEA IDEA
LINNAEUS'S IDEA
LYNX LYNX
EURASIAN LYNX
MODULUS MODULUS
BUTTONSNAIL
MOPS MOPS
MALAYAN FREE-TAILED BAT
REGULUS REGULUS
GOLDCREST

Authors' Notes

A few weeks before hunt began, the Idea idea wikipedia page was modified to say "rice paper" instead of "Linnaeus's idea". Let's just say this is not the first puzzle for which I have had to ninja-edit Wikipedia to avoid breaking the solve experience.