FILE No.5Unsolved
A phantom thief famous for loving puzzles has sent the police another notice.
"On October 31, I will take one bird from the bird park. The bird I am after is hidden in these lines."
There are six lines, and each looks like a piece of bird trivia (see the figure).
The detective in charge scratched his head. "Is the target bird actually written in here?"
Then the director of the bird park said, "Only one of the six lines is wrong. Only one is an uso, as we say in Japanese."
Which bird is the thief after?
If you get stuck, open the hints one at a time, in order.
Not every line in the thief’s notice is correct.
Finding the mistake alone only gives you a plain trivia quiz.
Look again at the Japanese word the director used.
Which bird is the thief after?
Choose the answer closest to the truth.
Bullfinch ("Uso" in Japanese)
The answer is the bullfinch (called "uso" in Japanese).
Of the six lines, the wrong one is C: "Penguins live only in Antarctica." Penguins also live in South America, Africa, Australia and the Galapagos Islands.
But if the target were the penguin, this would be a plain trivia quiz. The thief loves puzzles, so there must be one more twist. The director said, "Only one of them is a lie." The bird with the same name as that word, the bullfinch (uso, a small songbird), is the one being targeted.
The other five lines are all true: an ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain, a flamingo’s pink comes from pigments in its food, hummingbirds can hover, cuckoos lay eggs in other birds’ nests, and owls can turn their heads about 270 degrees.
Told to find the lie, you start checking which trivia lines are true. The answer is in the wording, not the knowledge, so you search in the wrong place.
The cases on this site are fictional puzzles created for entertainment. Any resemblance to real people, organizations or events is coincidental.
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