Hubbardia heptaneuron, which has become endangered, is a species of which of the following?

Correct — D. Hubbardia heptaneuron is a grass, a member of the family Poaceae, which is option (d).

It is an Indian endemic described from the spray zone of waterfalls on the Sharavathi river in the Western Ghats of Karnataka. Much of that habitat went under water when the Linganamakki dam was built, which is how a grass came to be listed as endangered.

The binomial itself carries no clue to the group, so the item is pure recall of the species.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Tiger — The tiger is Panthera tigris. No species in the genus Hubbardia is an animal at all, let alone a big cat.
• (b)
  Bamboo — Bamboos are grasses too, but they sit in the subfamily Bambusoideae and are tall and woody. Hubbardia heptaneuron is a small grass of wet rock faces, not a bamboo.
• (c)
  Crane — Cranes are birds, of the family Gruidae. The option is out on kingdom alone once you know Hubbardia is a plant.

Poaceae, the grass family, is far wider than lawn grass. It takes in the cereals — wheat, rice, maize — along with sugarcane and the bamboos, which are woody grasses.

Hubbardia heptaneuron sits at the other extreme: a small grass endemic to a narrow stretch of the Western Ghats, growing where waterfall spray keeps the rock permanently wet. A species with a range that small can lose most of its habitat to a single dam, which is what happened here.

Key facts

• Hubbardia heptaneuron is a grass of the family Poaceae and is endemic to India.
• It is associated with the spray zone of waterfalls on the Sharavathi river in Karnataka's Western Ghats.
• Its habitat was largely submerged after the Linganamakki dam was built on the Sharavathi.
• Bamboos also belong to Poaceae, in the subfamily Bambusoideae.

Common traps

• Assuming a hard-sounding Latin binomial must belong to an animal.
• Ruling out grass because bamboo is also on the list, when both are Poaceae.

No directly related past PYQ was found.