Animal Trivia
123 Animal Trivia Questions, Every Answer Sourced
Everyone else’s trivia list asks you to take its word for it. This one shows its working.
Animal trivia is easy to find and hard to trust. The lists that rank for it are copied from one another, and a wrong number survives that process indefinitely because nobody in the chain ever had a source to check against.
These 123 questions come from the 90 animal pages on this site, where every claim was researched and then handed to a second pass whose only job was to try to break it. Roughly half of what was researched did not survive. What did is below, and each answer carries the study, museum or wildlife agency it was checked against — click through and see for yourself.
Answers are hidden until you open them, so the page works as a quiz. Three rounds, hardest last.
Easy round · 19 questions
No prior knowledge needed. Good for children and for warming a room up.
1. Which mammals are the only ones capable of true flight?
Bats are the only mammals that truly fly.
2. Is the koala a bear?
No. A koala bear isn't a bear at all, but a marsupial.
3. What does a Bactrian camel actually store in its humps?
Fat, not water — roughly 25 to 35 kg in each hump, a calorie reserve of about 250,000 to 350,000 kcal.
More camel facts · Source: The two-humped camel (Camelus bactrianus)
4. What is a gathering of crows called?
A murder.
5. How often does a deer replace its antlers?
Every single year. Deer shed the old set and regrow a brand-new pair.
6. Where does a flamingo's pink colour come from?
Its food. Flamingos are not born pink and do not make the pigment themselves, but metabolise carotenoids out of the algae and brine shrimp they eat.
More flamingo facts · Source: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Flamingos
7. What is the smallest bird in the world?
The Bee Hummingbird of Cuba, about two and a quarter inches long and weighing under two grams, less than a US dime.
More hummingbird facts · Source: Get to Know the Bee Hummingbird, the World's Smallest Bird
8. Which two cats are bigger than a jaguar?
The tiger and the lion. The jaguar is the largest cat in the Americas and the third-largest cat in the world.
9. How much of a jellyfish is water?
Roughly 95%. Only about five percent of its body is solid matter.
10. How many hours a day does a lion spend resting?
Lions spend 16 to 20 hours a day resting.
More lion facts · Source: Behavior & Ecology - African and Asian Lions (Panthera leo) Fact Sheet
11. How far away can a howler monkey be heard?
Howler monkeys can be heard up to three miles away.
12. How many hearts does an octopus have?
Three: two branchial hearts that push blood through the gills, plus one systemic heart that circulates oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.
More octopus facts · Source: Cephalopods: Octopus, Squid, Cuttlefish, and Nautilus
13. Why does an owl turn its whole head to look around?
An owl's eyes are fixed in their sockets, so it swivels its entire head to look in a new direction.
14. What is a baby rabbit called?
A kitten, the same name as a baby cat.
More rabbit facts · Source: 8 cool things you should know about rabbits
15. On how many continents do scorpions live?
Six of Earth's seven continents. They are missing only from Antarctica.
16. In seahorses, which parent carries the pregnancy?
The male seahorse carries the pregnancy, not the female.
More seahorse facts · Source: How do seahorses differ from all other animals?
17. How often does a shark lose its teeth?
Roughly every week.
18. How many of a squirrel's teeth never stop growing?
Four front teeth, the incisors, which is why squirrels gnaw constantly to file them down.
19. How fast can a wolf run over a short distance?
Close to 35 mph.
Medium round · 54 questions
The ones most people half-know and get slightly wrong.
20. How many teeth does an alligator get through in a lifetime?
Between 2,000 and 3,000. New teeth constantly replace the worn ones.
More alligator and crocodile facts · Source: American alligator
21. How many ants are alive on Earth at any given moment?
Roughly 20 quadrillion, with a combined dry weight of about 12 megatons of carbon.
More ant facts · Source: The abundance, biomass, and distribution of ants on Earth
22. How many bear species do scientists recognize worldwide?
Eight: giant panda, sun bear, sloth bear, spectacled bear, American black bear, brown bear, polar bear and Asiatic black bear.
More bear facts · Source: Species — IUCN SSC Bear Specialist Group
23. How long can a beaver stay underwater?
Up to 15 minutes at a stretch.
More beaver facts · Source: Beaver (Castor canadensis) — Living with Wildlife
24. How many eyes does a bee have?
Five in total — two compound eyes plus three simple ocelli.
25. What gives a butterfly's wings their colour?
Tiny scales layered across the wing surface.
More butterfly facts · Source: Butterflies (BugInfo, Information Sheet Number 168)
26. Why are almost all calico and tortoiseshell cats female?
Those coats need two X chromosomes. The rare males are XXY and sterile.
More cat facts · Source: Calico and Black and Orange Tortoiseshell Cats
27. How quickly does a cheetah reach 45 mph from a standstill?
In 2.5 seconds, covering 23 feet per stride at four strides a second.
28. How many broiler chickens are alive on Earth at any moment?
Roughly 23 billion, most of them living about six weeks. Geologists have proposed the broiler skeleton as a marker fossil for the Anthropocene.
More chicken facts · Source: Chickens to be marker of Anthropocene
29. How many hairs grow from a single chinchilla follicle?
Between 50 and 80, packing up to about 25,000 hairs into one square centimetre of skin — the densest fur of any land animal, per Guinness World Records.
30. Which two colours can a cow not tell apart?
Red and green.
More cow facts · Source: Beef Cattle Handling: Physiology and Behavior
31. Which genus do coyotes share with wolves and domestic dogs?
The genus Canis. The coyote belongs to the dog family, Canidae.
More coyote facts · Source: ITIS Standard Report Page: Canis latrans (TSN 180599)
32. Where are a crab's teeth located?
In its stomach, rather than in its mouth.
More crab facts · Source: Crustaceans have teeth in their stomach
33. How wide can the largest crab span from claw to claw?
The Japanese spider crab can span 12 feet from claw to claw, the largest crab size.
34. What happens to a cricket's chirp as the temperature rises?
It speeds up. The chirp rate is directly tied to temperature.
35. What body temperature does a healthy dog run?
Around 101.2°F, several degrees warmer than a person's.
More dog facts · Source: Description and Physical Characteristics of Dogs
36. How does a dog's colour vision compare with a human's?
Dogs aren't colorblind. They perceive a narrower slice of the color spectrum than humans do.
37. How long does an elephant pregnancy last?
About 22 months, one of the longest of any mammal.
38. How much of the day does a healthy pet ferret spend asleep?
18 to 20 hours a day.
More ferret facts · Source: Mustela putorius furo (domestic ferret)
39. How cold a temperature can Arctic foxes tolerate?
As low as -70°C.
More fox facts · Source: How Arctic foxes endure -70 degrees Celsius
40. How long is a giraffe's tongue?
A giraffe's tongue stretches about 18 inches.
More giraffe facts · Source: How long is a giraffe's tongue? What color is it?
41. What shape are a goat's pupils?
Rectangular, not round.
42. How much does a gorilla weigh at birth?
About 4 pounds, even though adult male silverbacks can top 400 pounds.
More gorilla facts · Source: Inside the world of gorillas: Fun facts you didn't know
43. In most hawk species, which sex is larger?
The female.
44. How many spines does an adult European hedgehog carry?
Around 5,000. They are hollow, made of keratin, and grown from ordinary hair follicles.
More hedgehog facts · Source: Erinaceus europaeus (western European hedgehog)
45. How long can a hippo's canine teeth grow?
Up to 51 cm (20 inches). A hippo's canine and incisor teeth never stop growing.
46. How much sleep does a horse need each day?
Only about 2.5 to 3 hours, despite its size.
47. How do a jaguar's markings differ from a leopard's?
Jaguar rosettes usually enclose one or more smaller black spots, while leopard rosettes are empty.
48. How much does a newborn red kangaroo weigh?
About 1 gram. It takes roughly three minutes to crawl up its mother's belly and latch onto a teat.
More kangaroo facts · Source: Red Kangaroo (Osphranter rufus) Fact Sheet: Reproduction & Development
49. How high up a tree can a leopard haul a carcass heavier than itself?
As high as 15 m (50 ft). One leopard was recorded dragging a 100 kg young giraffe into cover.
50. What changes inside a chameleon's skin when it changes colour?
The lizard physically re-spaces a lattice of guanine nanocrystals inside skin cells called iridophores, and the new spacing reflects a different colour. The change is structural, not pigment.
More lizard facts · Source: Photonic crystals cause active colour change in chameleons
51. What happens to a manta ray if it stops swimming?
It stops breathing. A manta has no way to pump water over its gills, so forward motion is the only thing keeping it breathing, for its entire 40-plus-year life.
More manta ray facts · Source: What are mobulids? Manta & devil ray ecology and biology
52. How many moth species are known worldwide, compared with butterflies?
Roughly 160,000 moth species against about 17,500 butterflies, so moths outnumber butterflies roughly nine to one. Nearly 11,000 moth species live in the United States.
53. What is actually happening when an opossum plays dead?
It is not acting. Playing possum is an involuntary shock-like collapse, and it comes with a foul-smelling secretion released from glands near the animal's rear.
54. Which animal family does the orca belong to?
The dolphin family. An orca is not a whale in the everyday sense but the largest member of the dolphins, one of roughly 35 species of oceanic dolphin.
55. Which land animal has the largest eyes?
The ostrich. Its eye measures almost 2 inches (5 cm) across.
56. How much time does a sea otter have to spend on land?
None. Sea otters can spend their entire lives without ever coming ashore.
More otter facts · Source: 10 facts you otter know about sea otters
57. How many species does the name "panther" cover?
Panther is not one species. It is an umbrella term for several dark-coated big cats, including melanistic leopards and jaguars plus the Florida panther or puma, found across the Americas, Africa and Asia.
58. Which parrot is the heaviest in the world?
The kākāpō of New Zealand, with males reaching 4 kg. It cannot fly.
More parrot facts · Source: Kākāpō: New Zealand native land birds
59. How many eyespots does a peacock carry on his train?
Between 100 and 175 ocelli, the iridescent eyespots.
60. What is the longest dive ever recorded for a bird?
32.2 minutes, by an emperor penguin tagged in the Ross Sea.
More penguin facts · Source: Longest dive underwater by a bird (duration)
61. How does a polar bear's coat get its white colour?
It does not. There is no white pigment in the coat at all: the long outer guard hairs are hollow and transparent, and the finer undercoat hairs, while not hollow, are also colourless.
More polar bear facts · Source: Is a polar bear's fur transparent?
62. What lets a raccoon climb down a tree head-first?
It can rotate its hind feet a full 180 degrees, so it does not have to back down.
63. What do rats do when they are tickled?
They emit 50-kHz ultrasonic calls and perform spontaneous leaps that researchers named Freudensprünge, or joy jumps.
More rat facts · Source: If you give a rat a tickle (annotated version of Ishiyama & Brecht, Science 354:757)
64. Which was named first, the red panda or the giant panda?
The red panda. Western science described it in 1825, and the giant panda, described in 1869, was named after it.
65. How good is a rooster's sense of smell?
Weak. Roosters have a weak sense of smell and taste, but remarkably sharp hearing.
66. What color is snail blood?
Blue, because it carries oxygen with copper-based hemocyanin instead of the iron-based hemoglobin vertebrates use.
More snail facts · Source: Snails, Spiders, and Octopi all have Blue Blood
67. How many eyelids does a snake have?
None. Snakes have no eyelids and never blink or close their eyes.
More snake facts · Source: Do Snakes Have Ears? And Other Sensational Serpent Questions
68. What do many starfish push out through their mouth to feed?
Their stomach. They digest prey outside the body and then pull the soup back in, using an everting cardiac stomach alongside an internal pyloric stomach.
More starfish facts · Source: Echinoderms: Sea Stars, Urchins, Sand Dollars, and Relatives
69. What does a starfish pump around its body instead of blood?
Filtered seawater. It travels through a network of canals — the water vascular system — moving nutrients, gases and waste.
More starfish facts · Source: Echinoderms: Sea Stars, Urchins, Sand Dollars, and Relatives
70. What is the standard field treatment for a stingray sting?
Hot water, not ice. Stingray venom is destroyed by heat.
71. How far does a male turkey's gobble carry?
More than 1.5 kilometres, roughly a mile.
More turkey facts · Source: Meleagris gallopavo (wild turkey)
72. How many bones make up a turtle's shell?
Roughly 50. The shell is not one solid piece but a fused framework of bones.
73. Which land animal is the closest living relative of whales?
The hippo. Hippos are not whales' ancestors, though — both descend from a shared land-dwelling ancestor.
Hard round · 50 questions
Several of these would catch out someone who works with animals.
74. Which animal has the fastest appendage ever measured?
The Dracula ant. Its mandibles snap at peak velocities of 90 metres per second, completing the strike in as little as 23 microseconds.
More ant facts · Source: Snap-jaw morphology is specialized for high-speed power amplification in the Dracula ant, Mystrium camillae
75. How much of its body weight can a camel lose as water?
Up to 30%, a level of dehydration that would kill most mammals.
More camel facts · Source: How do camels survive in deserts?
76. What is the upper limit of a cat's hearing?
85 kHz at 70 dB SPL — more than four times the upper limit of human hearing, and one of the widest hearing ranges of any mammal.
77. How does a chameleon change colour?
It physically re-spaces a lattice of guanine nanocrystals inside skin cells called iridophores, retuning which wavelengths bounce back. Pigment is not pumped around.
More chameleon facts · Source: Photonic crystals cause active colour change in chameleons
78. Which four-limbed vertebrate has the shortest known lifespan?
Labord's chameleon of southwest Madagascar, which lives just 4 to 5 months after hatching.
More chameleon facts · Source: A unique life history among tetrapods: an annual chameleon living mostly as an egg
79. What can newborn chicks do with objects hidden behind screens?
Chicks only three or four days old track them through a running series of additions and subtractions, and reliably pick the screen hiding more.
80. How old are the oldest known chimpanzee stone tools?
4,300 years. The nut-cracking stones were excavated in Côte d'Ivoire and still carry starch residue from the nuts, making them the only prehistoric ape archaeology known anywhere.
More chimpanzee facts · Source: 4,300-Year-old chimpanzee sites and the origins of percussive stone technology
81. Where on its body does a cricket hear?
Its hearing organs sit on its front legs rather than its head, so a cricket essentially listens through its knees.
More cricket facts · Source: Hearing with exceptionally thin tympana: Ear morphology and tympanal membrane vibrations in eneopterine crickets
82. How many teeth may a single crocodilian grow and shed in its lifetime?
Roughly 8,000, with worn teeth replaced continuously.
83. Which living animals are the closest relatives of birds?
Crocodiles. They share a common ancestor with birds from about 240 million years ago that also gave rise to the dinosaurs.
More crocodile facts · Source: Scientists reconstruct genome of common ancestor of crocodiles, birds, dinosaurs
84. What do crows crush and rub into their feathers?
Ants. Crows rub the residue on their feathers, apparently using it like a scent or cleaning agent.
More crow facts · Source: Photographer Captures Crow Taking an 'Ant Bath'
85. Which sense do dolphins lack entirely?
86. How many lenses can a single dragonfly eye hold?
As many as 30,000 individual lenses, giving near-panoramic vision.
More dragonfly facts · Source: Dragonflies: The ultimate hunters
87. What abstract idea can newly hatched ducklings learn from one exposure?
The relationship "same" versus "different", learned from a single imprinting exposure with no reward training. About three-quarters of the ducklings got it right.
More duck facts · Source: Newborn ducklings can acquire notions of 'same' and 'different'
88. How big was the record-holding bald eagle nest?
It measured 9.5 feet across and 20 feet deep, and weighed over two tons.
89. What do some frogs pull inward to help swallow their food?
Their eyes. Some frogs retract their eyes when they swallow to help push food down the throat.
More frog facts · Source: Contribution of eye retraction to swallowing performance in the northern leopard frog, Rana pipiens
90. How long is a golden hamster pregnant?
16 days, the shortest gestation of any placental mammal.
More hamster facts · Source: Mesocricetus auratus (golden hamster)
91. What is the wild conservation status of the standard pet hamster?
The golden (Syrian) hamster is Endangered in the wild. Its entire known extent of occurrence is 4,743 km² of farmland straddling the Turkish/Syrian border, with only 5-10 known locations.
More hamster facts · Source: Mesocricetus auratus (Golden Hamster) — The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
92. How far back does methicillin resistance in hedgehog bacteria date?
Around 200 years, long before antibiotics were used in medicine, according to genetic dating published in Nature in January 2022.
More hedgehog facts · Source: MRSA arose in hedgehogs long before antibiotic use
93. How do hippos get around underwater?
They gallop along the bottom. In a frame-by-frame study of two adult hippos, researchers never once saw the animals swim, recording an average underwater speed of 0.47 m/s.
More hippo facts · Source: Hippopotamus Underwater Locomotion: Reduced-Gravity Movements for a Massive Mammal
94. How many termites can an aardwolf, the smallest hyena, eat in a night?
As many as 300,000, licked up with a flat, sticky tongue.
95. How many eyes does a box jellyfish have?
24, arranged in four clusters called rhopalia, which they use to steer around mangrove roots.
More jellyfish facts · Source: Box jelly's simple eyes control motion
96. Which body part does a slow-walking kangaroo use as a fifth leg?
Its tail. Force-plate measurements showed the tail supplies as much forward push as the front and hind legs put together.
More kangaroo facts · Source: The kangaroo's tail propels and powers pentapedal locomotion
97. How many beetles rescued California's citrus industry in 1888?
129 vedalia beetles, shipped from Australia in three consignments between 30 November 1888 and 24 January 1889.
More ladybug facts · Source: Cottony cushion scale — Applied Biological Control Research
98. What public health effect do the leopards inside Mumbai's Sanjay Gandhi National Park have?
The roughly 40 leopards there eat about 1,500 stray dogs a year, and researchers estimate they prevent around 1,000 dog bites and 90 rabies cases annually.
More leopard facts · Source: How City-Dwelling Leopards Improve Human Health
99. What sex are Komodo dragon hatchlings produced without a father?
Always male. A female named Flora at Chester Zoo laid a clutch of 25 eggs without ever having been housed with a male, and because Komodo dragons use ZW sex chromosomes such fatherless hatchlings are always male.
100. How much blood can winter ticks take from a single moose?
Nearly 24 gallons, at 90,000 ticks. Each adult female winter tick removes about one milliliter of blood.
101. Which animal has the highest recorded hearing frequency sensitivity?
The greater wax moth, which can sense sound frequencies up to 300 kHz. Humans manage about 20 kHz and dolphins stop near 160 kHz.
More moth facts · Source: World's most extreme hearing animal: The greater wax moth
102. What is the longest egg-brooding period recorded for any animal?
53 months. A deep-sea octopus, Graneledone boreopacifica, was watched guarding the same clutch of about 160 eggs at 1,400 metres in Monterey Canyon.
More octopus facts · Source: Deep-Sea Octopus (Graneledone boreopacifica) Conducts the Longest-Known Egg-Brooding Period of Any Animal
103. How long is an opossum pregnancy?
Just 12 to 13 days, among the shortest gestations of any mammal. Females in warm climates can raise three litters in a single year.
104. Which mammal has the longest average interval between births?
The orangutan. A study pooling seven field sites found an average closed interbirth interval of 7.6 years.
More orangutan facts · Source: The slow ape: High infant survival and long interbirth intervals in wild orangutans
105. How do nesting chinstrap penguins get their sleep?
In microsleeps: over 600 an hour, more than 10,000 a day, most lasting only a few seconds. Each brain hemisphere still banks 11.5 to 12 hours of slow-wave sleep daily.
More penguin facts · Source: Penguins nesting in a dangerous environment obtain large quantities of sleep via seconds-long microsleeps
106. What did eye tests on pigs reveal about their vision?
Every pig tested turned out to be far-sighted, measured at between +1 and +2 diopters of hyperopia.
More pig facts · Source: Acquisition of a Joystick-Operated Video Task by Pigs (Sus scrofa)
107. Which living bird is the closest relative of the dodo?
The Nicobar pigeon of Southeast Asia. Genetic analysis places it as the closest living relative of the dodo and the Rodrigues solitaire.
More pigeon facts · Source: The mysterious Spotted Green Pigeon and its relation to the Dodo and its kindred
108. What happens to a pigeon's head-bobbing on a treadmill?
It stops entirely. The bobbing is a vision trick: the head locks in place while the body walks forward under it, then snaps ahead.
More pigeon facts · Source: The Optokinetic Basis of Head-Bobbing in the Pigeon
109. How far has a polar bear been recorded swimming without stopping?
687 km, by a GPS-collared female in the Beaufort Sea over nine days in 2008.
More polar bear facts · Source: Consequences of long-distance swimming and travel over deep-water pack ice for a female polar bear during a year of extreme sea ice retreat
110. How many times can a female brown rat mate in one fertile window?
Up to 500 times during a single six-hour window of fertility.
111. Which sound brings ravens in to look for food?
A gunshot. A Wyoming study found that during hunting season a gunshot drew ravens in to look for a carcass, while equally loud but meaningless sounds such as an airhorn or a car door were ignored.
More raven facts · Source: Common Raven Overview — Cool Facts
112. How far ahead can ravens plan for tool use and bartering?
Up to 17 hours, matching the performance of great apes, in a 2017 Science study.
More raven facts · Source: Ravens parallel great apes in flexible planning for tool-use and bartering
113. How much sleep do northern elephant seals get at sea?
An average of just 2 hours a day during months-long foraging trips, among the least sleep of any mammal.
More seal facts · Source: Elephant Seals Drift Off to Sleep While Diving Far Below the Ocean Surface
114. How much prey do the world's spiders kill each year?
An estimated 400-800 million metric tons — roughly what the entire human population eats in meat and fish.
More spider facts · Source: An estimated 400-800 million tons of prey are annually killed by the global spider community
115. Which spider spins silk twice as tough as any measured before it?
Darwin's bark spider, described from Madagascar in 2010. Its dragline silk is over ten times tougher than Kevlar.
More spider facts · Source: Bioprospecting Finds the Toughest Biological Material: Extraordinary Silk from a Giant Riverine Orb Spider
116. How many stingray spines were found in one hammerhead's mouth and jaws?
96. Hammerhead sharks eat stingrays despite the barbs, and one scalloped hammerhead was found carrying 96 venomous spines.
117. How many young does a Tasmanian devil give birth to at once?
Twenty to thirty, after a pregnancy of only about 21 days.
118. Which three tiger subspecies have gone extinct?
The Caspian, Javan and Bali tigers.
119. What share of a toucan's body mass is its bill?
Only around one twentieth, about 5%, even though the bill makes up roughly a third of the bird's total length.
More toucan facts · Source: Structure and mechanical behavior of a toucan beak
120. Which birds are toucans most closely related to?
Woodpeckers. Toucans belong to the order Piciformes, while the lookalike hornbills are only distantly related.
121. How are commercial supermarket turkeys produced?
By artificial insemination, every one of them. They are bred so heavy-breasted that they can no longer mate.
122. Which equid has the longest pregnancy, and how long is it?
The Grévy's zebra. A mare carries her single foal for 390 days, the longest gestation of any equid.
123. Which extinct animal started the entire field of ancient DNA?
The quagga. In 1984 researchers recovered two short mitochondrial DNA sequences from a museum specimen of it.
More zebra facts · Source: A rapid loss of stripes: the evolutionary history of the extinct quagga
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these animal trivia questions suitable for kids?
The easy round is, and it is marked as such. Those questions need no prior knowledge and the answers are short. The medium and hard rounds assume more, and some of the hard ones would catch out a zookeeper — which is the point of having three rounds rather than one.
Where do the answers come from?
Each one comes from a claim that was researched and then independently fact-checked before it was published on this site, and every answer here links to the source it was verified against — a study, a museum, a zoological society or a wildlife agency. Around half of everything originally researched failed that check and was discarded.
Can I use these trivia questions for a quiz night?
Yes. Use them freely for a pub quiz, a classroom, a party or a family game. If you print or repost them, a link back is appreciated but not required.
How many animals do the questions cover?
All 90 animals that have a facts page on this site, with no more than two questions each so the spread stays wide. Every question links to that animal's full page of facts.