40 Animal Trivia Questions

1. A red panda’s extra gripping “thumb” is actually an enlarged what?

2. Which snack does a binturong’s natural scent famously resemble?

3. What does a tapir use its flexible, short trunk to grasp?

4. Which especially long, slender finger does an aye-aye use to tap wood and extract food?

5. What useful job does a saiga antelope’s oversized nose do in dusty herds?

6. Qiviut is the soft insulating underwool of which animal?

7. Giant anteaters walk on their front knuckles to protect what?

8. Despite its small, furry appearance, a hyrax belongs to a lineage closely related to which animals?

9. A common eider lines its nest with which famously insulating material?

10. A male Namaqua sandgrouse can carry water to its chicks using specially adapted what?

11. Besides handling food, a toco toucan’s large bill helps it do what?

12. A black heron often holds its wings like an umbrella while doing what?

13. In emus, which parent incubates the eggs?

14. Which body part pins caught fish against the roof of an Atlantic puffin’s bill?

15. New Caledonian crows can shape twigs into tools with which useful feature at the end?

16. Which feature can a hoopoe raise into a distinctive fan on its head?

17. Garden eels feed while keeping the lower part of their bodies where?

18. Which structures fuse into the beak-like biting plates of a stoplight parrotfish?

19. Instead of ordinary fish scales, what covers a seahorse’s body?

20. The internal cuttlebone helps a cuttlefish control what?

21. Unlike octopuses, a chambered nautilus has tentacles without what?

22. A remora’s suction disc evolved from which body structure?

23. Mudskippers prop themselves up and move over mud chiefly using which paired fins?

24. How does a whale shark obtain much of its tiny plankton food?

25. Before becoming flying adults, dragonflies spend their nymph stage where?

26. What does a springtail’s forked furcula help it do?

27. Green lacewing eggs are often attached to leaves by what unusual support?

28. A honeybee’s waggle dance helps nestmates locate what?

29. The tiny bristles called setae help an earthworm do what in its burrow?

30. Before leaping, a jumping spider commonly anchors what behind itself?

31. What is the protective egg case produced by a praying mantis called?

32. A pillbug may look like an insect, but it actually belongs to which group?

33. A young tuatara has a light-sensitive “third eye” on which part of its body?

34. Why are glass frogs named after glass?

35. Marine iguanas in the Galápagos feed mainly on what?

36. Caecilians resemble worms but belong to which vertebrate group?

37. Where does a male midwife toad carry developing strings of eggs?

38. Which body feature lets a red-eyed tree frog grip leaves and branches?

39. The gharial’s long, narrow snout is especially suited to catching which food?

40. How many ridges run lengthwise along a leatherback sea turtle’s upper shell?