Warning: This page contains spoilers for the July 26, 2024, game of Jeopardy! — please do not scroll down if you wish to avoid being spoiled. Please note that the game airs today as early as 11:30 AM Eastern in some U.S. television markets.
Here’s today’s Final Jeopardy (in the category Ancient Animals) for Friday, July 26, 2024 (Season 40, Game 230):
The first fossils of these creatures with an elongated 4th digit were described in 1784 by naturalist Cosimo Collini
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
Rachel Bradley, an ESL instructor from Greenbelt, Maryland
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Steve Babish, a marketing content strategist from San Jose, California
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Davey Morrison, an actor & screenwriter from Provo, Utah (2-day total: $29,012)
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
The final game of Season 40 features 2-day champion Davey Morrison against challengers Steve Babish and Rachel Bradley. Today’s winner will return on September 9; the intervening six weeks will feature encore presentations of the 31st Tournament of Champions and the 1st Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament.
Another reminder that there are widespread pre-emptions today if you watch on an NBC station due to the Opening Ceremonies of the Summer Olympics. You can either check your local listings, or consult Matt Carberry’s spreadsheet, where he has tracked the schedule changes.
I have an occasional mailbag column where I answer fan & viewer questions regarding the show. If you have a question, feel free to send it to mailbag@thejeopardyfan.com!
(Content continues below)
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Correct response: What is a pterodactyl?
More information about Final Jeopardy:
(The following write-up is original content and is copyright 2024 The Jeopardy! Fan. It may not be copied without linked attribution back to this page.)
The famed flying reptile known as a pterodactyl was first described by Cosimo Colloni based on a fossil that had been unearthed in Bavaria; Colloni was curator of an 18th-century equivalent of a natural history museum at the time. The name pterodactyl, or “winged finger”, comes from the fact that the pterodactyl had a membrane stretching from an elongated fourth finger to the hind limbs that served as a wing.
It does appear, at least to some, that the more general term “pterosaur” isn’t discounted by anything in the clue, but I honestly don’t expect it to be a gameplay issue—though if you said that at home, I’d give myself credit. I do think that Jeopardy should probably be more careful when it comes to dinosaur clues, as I’d expect there to be a significant “special interest” overlap of “Jeopardy fans” and “dinosaur fans” such that there are probably more viewers than normal that would be a subject matter expert on this subject.
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Game Recap & Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Friday, July 26, 2024 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: A Date In History; Idioms & Expressions; A Word From Your Doctor; Also A Fishing Term; A Thing For Feats; We Crack Ourselves Up)
Davey got the Daily Double and used it to propel himself into an early lead. At the first break, Davey led with $2,400 to Rachel’s $600 and Steve’s $400.
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Davey 4 correct 1 incorrect
Rachel 3 correct 1 incorrect
Steve 3 correct 1 incorrect
Today’s interviews:
Rachel learned many languages on DuoLingo.
Steve wrote a doctoral dissertation on 70s science fiction film architecture.
Davey is part of a theatre troupe performing Shakespeare as Shakespeare performed it.
While Davey still led after 30, both challengers did very well in this segment and all three players were very close.
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Davey 7 correct 2 incorrect
Rachel 9 correct 1 incorrect
Steve 6 correct 1 incorrect
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Davey $4,000
Rachel $3,800
Steve $2,400
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Canals; “I” + 4; Too Much Of Something; Tick Tock; Face Books; Insta-Graham)
Steve got to both Daily Doubles; unfortunately, he went conservative on DD2 and got DD3 incorrect. This gave Rachel an opening, and she ended up just $300 in the lead going into the last Final Jeopardy of the season.
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Rachel 16 correct 3 incorrect
Steve 19 correct 2 incorrect
Davey 12 correct 5 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 25 (0 today).
Scores going into Final:
Rachel $11,800
Steve $11,500
Davey $6,400
Rachel was the only player correct in Final, which makes her both the new Jeopardy! champion and the champion for the summer! She’ll be back September 9 to defend.
Tonight’s results:
Davey $6,400 – $5,401 = $999 (What are giant sloths????)
Steve $11,500 – $1,400 = $10,100 (What are saber-toothed tigers)
Rachel $11,800 + $11,797 = $23,597 (What are pterodactyls?) (1-day total: $23,597)
Other Miscellaneous Game Statistics:
Daily Double locations:
1) A DATE IN HISTORY $600 (clue #3)
Davey 800 +1000 (Steve -600 Rachel -600)
2) TICK TOCK $1600 (clue #6)
Steve 5600 +1500 (Davey 2800 Rachel 3800)
3) TOO MUCH OF SOMETHING $2000 (clue #18, $10800 left on board)
Steve 10300 -2000 (Davey 5600 Rachel 7400)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: 107
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Davey 4 3 3*
Steve
Rachel
DJ! Round:
Davey 4 5 3
Steve 3 2 3 3 4* 4 4 4 5† 3 5*
Rachel 3 2 4 2
† – selection in same category as Daily Double
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Rachel 2.75
Steve 3.64
Davey 3.67
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 25 (0.11 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Rachel $11,800 Coryat, 16 correct, 3 incorrect, 28.57% in first on buzzer (16/56), 2/3 on rebound attempts (on 5 rebound opportunities)
Steve $13,600 Coryat, 19 correct, 2 incorrect, 28.57% in first on buzzer (16/56), 2/3 on rebound attempts (on 7 rebound opportunities)
Davey $6,000 Coryat, 12 correct, 5 incorrect, 28.57% in first on buzzer (16/56), 0/0 on rebound attempts (on 2 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $31,400
Lach Trash: $11,600 (on 11 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $10,000
Lead Changes: 8
Times Tied: 1
Player Statistics:
Davey Morrison, career statistics:
51 correct, 15 incorrect
2/2 on rebound attempts (on 14 rebound opportunities)
34.94% in first on buzzer (58/166)
2/3 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $5,800)
2/3 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $9,533
Steve Babish, career statistics:
19 correct, 3 incorrect
2/3 on rebound attempts (on 7 rebound opportunities)
28.57% in first on buzzer (16/56)
1/2 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: -$500)
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $13,600
Rachel Bradley, career statistics:
17 correct, 3 incorrect
2/3 on rebound attempts (on 5 rebound opportunities)
28.57% in first on buzzer (16/56)
0/0 on Daily Doubles
1/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $11,800
Rachel Bradley, to win:
2 games: 41.124%
3: 16.912%
4: 6.955%
5: 2.860%
6: 1.176%
Avg. streak: 1.698 games.
Andy’s Thoughts:
- I’ll be honest: even though there are multiple famous Curie families in science, the optics of Davey not being prompted and Rachel being prompted is not going to play well on social media tonight. Ken probably should have prompted Davey on the Daily Double.
- Today’s box score will be linked to when posted by the show.
Final Jeopardy! wagering suggestions:
(Scores: Rachel $11,800 Steve $11,500 Davey $6,400)
Davey: Bet between $3,800 (therefore passing Steve if he bets to cover you and is incorrect) and $5,800 (therefore staying ahead of Rachel if she bets to cover and is incorrect. (Actual bet: $5,401)
Steve: Standard cover bet over Davey is $1,301. (Actual bet: $1,400)
Rachel: Standard cover bet over Steve is $11,201. (Actual bet: $11,797)
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“What is a pterodactyl?” I didn’t know that they had been discovered that early, but I did know that “dactyl” means finger and I didn’t know of any other “Ancient Animal” known for its “finger”. It’s good to end the season with a get.
Enjoy your vacation, Andy!
Toes are digits, too! It is unfortunate for me that I knew that as I knew that ancient horses had toes which evolved into one hoof per foot, so I had guessed horses.
I went the “dactyl” means finger route with RedRose. That’s the only thing that made sense to me so I was limited in my choices. Fortunately, it was the right one.
Hi RedRose, Good on ya! Sadly, I was stymied by this Final! and could not come up with “pterodactyl.” Too bad. I was hoping to end this season with the correct “answer” in Final! Have a great summer & I hope to see you back here in the fall. Cheers, Judith
A big thanks, Andy for all the work you do on this site every season. You do an amazing job with it, and it’s appreciated more than you probably know.
Yes, also many thanks Andy for the work you do for this site.
I’m surprised that anyone was able to spell “PTERODACTYL”!!!
I can’t wait for September 9th and for season 41 to begin.
Have a great summer everyone.
I do not like the $600 clue under IDIOMS & EXPRESSIONS. It is no wonder that it clearly confused all three players.
“Give him his head” does not mean the same as giving freedom (which I feel implies total freedom), it just means giving free rein to do something semi-specific (such as providing someone a supplied art studio and saying they can make anything they want to). It comes from horse riding and horse racing — in just riding, one is using the bridle and reins to guide the horse and giving him his head means letting him go wherever he wants to for a while, not giving him his freedom (to go free/feral) — in racing it means letting him go as fast as he wants to after initially holding him back (via bridle and reins) to save energy and/or for strategic maneuvering.
But “hand him his head” means to beat him in the sense of winning a game against him. I feel that here it seems to imply “beat him up”, so “defeat him” would have been better.
At the very least, in this form, this clue should have been $1,000 and the next two clues lowered $200 each (even though the $1,000 clue was also a triple stumper). I feel what made the last clue so difficult was the reference to it being a 2-part phrase — I feel like that made it sound like it would be something like “spare the rod, spoil the child” or “If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas” rather than a mere two words with an “and” between them. So I think it should have merely said “phrase”. However, intentionally vague or not, the “completely settled” in that clue did sound more like the accomplishment of pioneers in a valley or somewhere” than like “already decided”. [Also, “completely settled” can be immediately after all is agreed upon, but “cut and dried” implies sometime ago, maybe even long ago.]
Something weird happened on this page when I was trying to reply to RedRose. I had written the comment and filled in the name & email (but did not notice that the name had disappeared while I was filling out email). The disappearing name is a little weird, but it happens every now and then, but that is not the problem and sometimes I notice and go back to fill it in. This time I didn’t notice and when I clicked ‘Post’ I got a full page (but very small message) saying that I had to fill in ALL the required fields. When I clicked to go back, my reply had been moved down to an ordinary/new comment (rather than as the reply to someone else). That is more weird, but I have also seen this happen occasionally. However, I planned to cut the “new comment”, cancel it, then paste it back as a reply again, but first went to a different tab on my screen to save something else and when I quickly came back to this page, it was covered by a whole-page ad (which has also happened before). Here is the really weird part — when I X’d out of the ad, I was no longer on THIS page, it had taken me back to yesterday’s page!
You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Welcome to…The Twilight Zone.
This was a good last-show-of-the-season game! Since I don’t watch TV reruns, I’ll be tuning back in to J! on September 9th. Enjoy your summer, all! ☮️
I wanted to say I too appreciate all you do (thanks for linking Matt’s spreadsheet, by the way, as it let me watch at my usual time), and am looking forward to next season! I will see you then.
I ended the season on a sour note with FJ. Did not get a single one this week, as the first three were obscure and I couldn’t for the life of me remember Molly Brown’s name or that a pterodactyl had a long 4th digit. At least this game was thrilling to watch!
We’ll see how having two months off will affect Rachel. She made a slight overbet, but it doesn’t matter here since she and Steve were so close in score. Ken was right that Steve made a smart bet that took Davey’s bet into account. Given his history, I don’t know if Davey took the others’ bets into account… something for him to work on for the wild card, maybe?
I went with Velociraptor! Wrong! LOL
Some comparison stats for regular play Jeopardy Season 40 vs. Season 39.
Season 40 had 78 games and Season 39 had 190 games.
Season 40 had 24 Champions (14 Multi-Day) in those 78 games and Season 39 had 77 Champions (38 Multi-Day) in those 190 games. Therefore, Season 40’s average Champion won 3.25 games, while Season 39’s average Champion won 2.47 games. That is interesting to me.
Season 40’s Champions won $1,507,395 in 78 wins for an average of $19,325.58 per win, while Season 39’s Champions won $4,368,542 in 190 wins for an average of $22,992.33. Champions winnings were down by 15.95%. Though with only 78 games played compared to 190 games played, it’s not a really fair comparison.
Season 40 had 28 Runaways wins in 78 games (35.90%) and Season 39 had 78 Runaway wins in 190 games (41.05%).
All credit to the Jeopardy site and this site here for helping me compile this data.
Looking forward to the return of Jeopardy on September 9th, though I am sure it will be delayed for me that night, as it’s the first Monday of the NFL season and we get our Jeopardy on ABC.
Many thanks to Andy on this site! I very much appreciate it! Many many thanks to my fellow commentors for helping me (and giving me much encouragement) to end my 50 or so FJ streak of misses! Like Lisa said, I didn’t expect to end it with a clue about a doll! Cabbage Patch Kids! LOL.
Have a great one everyone and see ya’s in 36 days. 🙂
As a side note, once I do see tickets are available soon, I am going to ask for a day off of work and go see another 3 show taping!