251 Animals Trivia Questions and Answers
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Easy Animals Trivia Questions
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What is a baby whale called?
A calf
Whales are mammals, so they take cattle terms: a calf, born to a cow, in a herd or pod.
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What is a group of penguins on land called?
a colony
Penguins breed in colonies, some of them hundreds of thousands of birds strong. A group swimming together at sea is called a raft instead.
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What is a baby swan called?
A cygnet
Cygnet comes from cygnus, the Latin for swan. Cygnets are grey-brown for their first year before the white adult plumage grows in.
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What is the name for a squirrel's nest, the ball of twigs and leaves wedged in the fork of a tree?
A drey
A drey is woven from twigs and lined with moss, leaves and shredded bark. Squirrels keep more than one: loose open platforms for summer, and a thicker insulated drey for winter and for raising young.
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What is a baby deer called?
A fawn
Fawns are born with white spots that break up their outline in dappled woodland light, and fade as they grow.
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What is a baby goose called?
A gosling
Goslings can walk and feed themselves within a day of hatching, which is why they follow a parent almost immediately.
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What is a baby goat called?
A kid
The human sense of 'kid' came later, borrowed from the animal as slang in the 16th century.
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Beavers build two quite different structures. The dam holds back the stream, but what is the domed stick-and-mud house they actually live in called?
A lodge
A lodge is a mound of branches plastered with mud, standing in the pond the dam has created. Its entrances are underwater, out of reach of wolves and bears, while the living chamber inside sits above the waterline on a floor of shredded wood.
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What is a pig's enclosure called?
A sty
A pig lives in a sty, a word that has been in English since Anglo-Saxon times. A traditional sty pairs a small covered hut with an open yard, because a pig given the choice will not foul the part it sleeps in.
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What is a group of bees called when it leaves its hive and flies together?
a swarm
A group of bees that leaves its hive and flies together is called a swarm. Swarming usually happens when a colony splits and the queen travels with part of the colony to establish a new home.
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What is the name for the network of linked burrows that a group of rabbits lives in?
A warren
A warren is a shared tunnel system with many entrances, dug out by generations of rabbits and holding several breeding females. A doe about to give birth often digs a short blind side tunnel called a stop, plugs the mouth with soil, and rears her kittens in there.
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Which continent is the aardvark native to?
Africa
Aardvarks are native to sub-Saharan Africa.
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What is the name for the nest of an eagle or other large bird of prey, built high on a cliff ledge or at the top of a tall tree?
An eyrie
An eyrie, also spelled aerie, is a raptor's high nest. A pair returns to the same one every year and adds to it each season, and the largest bald eagle nest ever recorded measured about 2.9 metres across. The word is now used for any dwelling perched somewhere high.
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How many legs does a typical spider have?
Eight
Spiders are arachnids, a group characterized by four pairs of walking legs. Their mouthparts and body divisions also differ from those of insects.
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In which ocean are beluga whales native?
Arctic Ocean
Beluga whales live in the Arctic Ocean and its nearby northern seas.
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Which continent is the giant panda native to?
Asia
Giant pandas naturally occur in central China, in Asia.
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Which continent is the Komodo dragon native to?
Asia
Komodo dragons are native to several Indonesian islands in Asia.
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Which continent is the snow leopard native to?
Asia
Snow leopards inhabit mountain ranges across central and southern Asia.
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A male bowerbird spends weeks building a decorated avenue of sticks on the forest floor. What is it for?
Attracting a female to mate
The bower is a stage, not a home. The male builds it, sweeps the floor and lays out collected objects sorted by colour, satin bowerbirds hoarding anything blue, then dances there. After mating the female goes off and builds a separate cup nest in a tree, where she raises the young alone.
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Which continent is the kangaroo native to?
Australia
Kangaroos are native to Australia.
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Which continent is the platypus native to?
Australia
Platypuses are native to eastern Australia and Tasmania.
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In the wild, the quokka is found only in the far southwest of which country?
Australia
Quokkas live only in the southwestern corner of Australia. The largest population is on Rottnest Island near Perth, where there are no foxes or cats and the animals are famously unbothered by people.
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What is a young horse called?
Foal
Foal is the general term for a young horse, regardless of sex. A male foal may later be called a colt and a female a filly.
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What is a baby kangaroo called?
Joey
A joey is born very undeveloped and crawls into its mother's pouch. It continues growing there while nursing and becoming strong enough to emerge.
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Which animal digs and lives in a sett?
Badger
A sett is a badger's tunnel system, often with dozens of entrances, sleeping chambers lined with dry grass and bracken, and latrine pits dug outside. One clan after another enlarges the same sett, so a big one can stay in use for over a century.
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What ability distinguishes bats from all other living mammals?
Powered flight
Bats are the only mammals capable of true powered flight. Several other mammals glide, but they cannot generate lift with flapping wings in the same way.
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Which animal is famous for building dams from branches and mud?
Beaver
Beavers fell small trees with their teeth and weave the branches together with mud and stones. The dam floods the stream behind it into a deep pond, which lets the beaver keep the entrance to its lodge safely underwater.
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What does an apiarist keep?
Bees
An apiarist is a beekeeper, from the Latin apis, meaning bee. The place where the hives stand is an apiary.
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An ornithologist spends their career studying what?
Birds
Ornithology is the branch of zoology that deals with birds, covering everything from anatomy and song to migration and population counts. The name comes from the Greek ornis, ornithos, meaning bird.
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Which body covering is unique to birds among living animals?
Feathers
Feathers are made mainly of keratin and evolved from structures related to reptile scales. Birds use them for flight, insulation, camouflage, and display.
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Vampire bats live entirely on blood. What does their saliva do to make that possible?
Stops the blood from clotting
The three living vampire bat species are the only mammals known to feed entirely on blood. Their saliva contains anticoagulant compounds that keep a small wound bleeding while they drink.
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What substance is mainly stored in a camel's hump?
Fat
A camel’s hump mainly stores fat, which can be broken down for energy when food is scarce. The hump may shrink or droop as the stored fat is used.
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Biologically, what is a reef-building coral?
An animal
Corals are colonies of tiny animals called polyps. Many reef-building corals also rely on microscopic algae living inside their tissues for energy.
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In which country do eastern North American monarch butterflies overwinter?
Mexico
Each autumn, eastern North American monarchs travel to the mountain forests of central Mexico.
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Which animal commonly hunts flying insects by using echolocation?
Bat
Nightjars, swallows, and dragonflies are real predators of flying insects, but bats use echolocation to locate them.
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Blood pumped through the vessels in an elephant's ears returns to the body having done what?
Shed several degrees of heat
An elephant's ear is a thin sheet of skin carrying a dense web of blood vessels close to the surface. Blood pushed through them loses heat to the air, and flapping speeds that up, so it returns to the body several degrees cooler. That matters for an animal whose bulk generates far more heat than its surface can easily shed.
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In emperor penguins, which parent incubates the egg through the Antarctic winter, balanced on the feet under a fold of skin?
The male
The female lays a single egg, passes it to the male and walks back to the sea to feed. He balances it on his feet under a fold of skin called a brood pouch and fasts for about two months through the Antarctic winter, huddling with thousands of other males, until it hatches.
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Which is the tallest species of penguin?
Emperor penguin
An emperor penguin stands about 1.1 metres tall and can weigh 40 kg, the largest and tallest penguin alive. It is also the only one that breeds through the Antarctic winter.
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Which of these is the study of insects?
Entomology
Entomology is the study of insects, from the Greek entomon, an insect, literally something cut into, a reference to the segmented body. Etymology traces the history of words, etiology looks at the causes of disease, and ethnology compares human cultures.
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Which bird of prey reaches the highest speed of any animal when it dives on prey?
Peregrine falcon
A peregrine falcon climbs above its target, folds its wings and drops in a dive called a stoop, passing 200 mph. Nothing else alive moves that fast, and the bird has baffles in its nostrils to keep the airflow from stopping it breathing.
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Which broad animal group generally cannot blink because it lacks eyelids?
Fish
Most fish have no movable eyelids, so they cannot blink in the usual sense. Water continually bathes and protects their eyes instead.
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Why are flamingos pink or reddish?
Dietary carotenoids
Flamingos obtain carotenoid pigments from algae and small crustaceans. The pigments are deposited in their feathers and skin as the birds grow.
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What is a common name for a group of sheep?
flock
Sheep move together in a flock, an instinct so strong that one sheep will follow another over a gap in a wall. The same word covers a group of birds.
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What route do many frogs use to absorb water?
Through their skin
Many frogs absorb water directly through their skin instead of drinking it with their mouths. A specialized area of skin on the underside helps them take in water, especially when they sit in damp places.
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Which animal is tallest by standing height among living land mammals?
Giraffe
Giraffes are the tallest living land animals.
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How does a green anaconda usually kill large prey?
Constriction
Green anacondas kill large prey by coiling around it and constricting with their powerful bodies. They often ambush animals from the water, where their eyes and nostrils can remain above the surface.
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What is the heaviest living bird?
Ostrich
An ostrich can weigh around 150 kg and stand about 2.7 meters tall. Its large body is supported by powerful legs, but it cannot fly.
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What does a honeybee's waggle dance communicate to nestmates?
The location of food
The direction and duration of the waggle portion convey where a food source lies relative to the sun and how far away it is. The behavior lets one scout recruit many workers.
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Where does a female polar bear give birth?
In a chamber dug into a snowdrift
A pregnant female digs into a deep drift in autumn and stays sealed inside all winter without eating. The cubs are born around midwinter, blind and no bigger than a guinea pig, and the family digs its way out in spring.
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How many legs does a typical adult insect have?
Six
Insects have three pairs of legs attached to the thorax. Spiders also have jointed legs, but they are arachnids and typically have eight.
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Where does a hermit crab get the shell it lives in?
It moves into an empty sea snail shell
A hermit crab's abdomen is soft and curls to fit a spiral shell, so it has to find a vacant one and swap up as it grows. Crabs will line up beside a good empty shell in order of size, each stepping into the one the next-biggest has just vacated.
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What does a jellyfish lack?
A centralized brain
Jellyfish have a distributed nerve net rather than a centralized brain. They still sense light, touch, and chemicals and can coordinate swimming and feeding.
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Which lizard is heaviest by adult body mass?
Komodo dragon
The Komodo dragon is the world's largest and heaviest living lizard.
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Which is the heaviest animal known to have ever existed?
Blue whale
The blue whale is the largest known animal to have ever existed, growing to about 100 feet (30 meters) long and weighing up to 200 tons.
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What is the world’s largest coral reef system?
Great Barrier Reef
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef stretches for about 2,300 kilometers along the coast of Queensland. It is a vast collection of reefs and islands rather than one solid wall.
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Which land mammal is heaviest by body mass?
African elephant
Adult African elephants can weigh several tons and stand more than 3 meters at the shoulder. Their huge ears also help radiate body heat.
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Which is the heaviest living reptile?
Saltwater crocodile
Male saltwater crocodiles can exceed 6 meters in length and weigh more than a ton. They are found across coastal and estuarine areas of the Indo-Pacific.
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What is the largest living rodent?
Capybara
Capybaras are semi-aquatic rodents that can weigh more than 60 kg. They are social animals and often live in groups near water.
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Which fish migrates from the ocean back to the river where it was born?
Pacific salmon
Pacific salmon spend part of their lives in the ocean before returning upstream to reproduce. They use chemical cues and other orientation signals to find their home watershed.
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Which feature is a defining trait of mammals?
Hair at some stage of life
All mammals produce hair or fur at some point in their life cycle, even if it is sparse or quickly lost. Mammals also nourish young with milk.
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Which animal is native only to Africa?
Meerkat
Meerkats naturally occur in southern Africa.
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Which deer is heaviest by adult body mass?
Moose
Moose are the largest and heaviest members of the deer family.
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What was a dovecote built to provide?
Nest holes for pigeons kept for meat and eggs
A dovecote is a tower or wall lined with hundreds of nest holes. Pigeons bred in them all year round, so young birds could be taken through the winter when other fresh meat was scarce, and the droppings were shovelled out and spread as fertiliser.
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A common cuckoo slips into another bird’s nest to lay. Roughly how long does she take?
About ten seconds
The common cuckoo builds nothing. The female watches a smaller bird such as a reed warbler or meadow pipit, slips in while the owner is away, removes one egg and lays her own in about ten seconds. Her chick hatches early and heaves the remaining eggs over the side.
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What substance can an octopus release to confuse a predator?
Ink
An octopus can eject a cloud of dark ink that obscures its movement and disrupts a predator's senses. Some species also release chemicals that interfere with smell.
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About how far can an owl turn its head?
About 270 degrees
Owls cannot turn their heads all the way around, but they can rotate them about 270 degrees. Extra neck vertebrae and specialized blood vessels help make this possible.
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Which is the only penguin species that lives naturally north of the equator?
Galapagos penguin
The Humboldt and Cromwell currents keep the surrounding water far colder than the latitude suggests, letting a cold-adapted species survive on the equator. The northern tip of Isabela Island crosses into the Northern Hemisphere, which is why part of the population is found there naturally.
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What plant makes up most of a giant panda's diet?
Bamboo
Giant pandas eat bamboo as their main food, although they may occasionally eat other items.
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What is a common wasp's nest made of?
Paper, from wood chewed into pulp
A queen scrapes weathered wood from fences and dead branches, chews it with saliva into a grey pulp, and shapes it into hexagonal cells wrapped in a papery envelope. It is real paper, made from wood fibre long before anyone worked out how to do it.
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What color is a polar bear's skin beneath its fur?
Black
Polar bear fur looks white or cream, but the skin underneath is black. Dark skin may help absorb solar heat in the Arctic environment.
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What are a porcupine's quills, biologically speaking?
Modified keratin hairs
Porcupine quills are stiff hairs made of keratin, the same structural protein found in ordinary hair and nails. They detach easily when pressed into a predator's skin.
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What is unusual about a rabbit's front teeth?
They grow continuously
A rabbit’s front teeth grow continuously throughout its life. Chewing tough foods helps wear them down and keep them at a usable length.
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Which animal is native only to Asia?
Red panda
Red pandas are native to mountain forests in the Himalayas and southwestern China.
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Which amphibian is renowned for regenerating limbs, heart tissue, and parts of its nervous system?
Axolotl
Axolotls can regenerate lost limbs, heart tissue, and parts of their nervous system. They also retain their feathery external gills and aquatic form throughout adulthood.
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Herpetology covers which two groups of animals?
Reptiles and amphibians
Herpetology deals with snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodilians, frogs, toads and salamanders, and takes its name from the Greek herpeton, a creeping thing.
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What is a group of fish commonly called?
school
A group of fish is commonly called a school.
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What do sea otters use to crack open hard-shelled prey?
Rocks
A sea otter keeps a favourite rock in a pouch of loose skin under its forearm, then floats on its back and hammers clams and mussels open against it. Otters are among the few animals that carry a tool around rather than picking one up as needed.
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In which animal does the male carry developing embryos in a pouch?
Seahorse
The female seahorse deposits her eggs into a pouch on the male's belly. He fertilises them inside it, carries them for two to four weeks, then contracts to expel dozens of fully formed young.
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What material makes up most of a shark's skeleton?
Cartilage
Most of a shark’s skeleton is made of cartilage, the flexible tissue found in human joints and ears. This lighter skeleton helps sharks stay buoyant and move efficiently through the water.
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Which animal is famous for eating almost exclusively eucalyptus leaves?
Koala
Koalas specialize in eucalyptus leaves, which are low in calories and contain toxins. Their slow metabolism and specialized gut help them cope with this narrow diet.
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What is a molehill?
Soil the mole has pushed up out of its tunnel
A mole digs sideways underground and shoves the loose earth up a vertical shaft to get rid of it, so every hill is spoil from a tunnel below. The mole lives in the tunnel network itself, in a grass-lined nest chamber, and does not sit inside the hill.
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Which continent is the llama native to?
South America
Llamas originated in the Andes region of South America.
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Which bird is the national bird of the United States?
The bald eagle
The bald eagle was chosen in 1782 for the Great Seal. Benjamin Franklin famously preferred the turkey.
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Which animal is Canada's national emblem?
The beaver
The beaver was made an official emblem in 1975, recognising the fur trade that drove Canada's early European settlement.
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Which animal is the national animal of India?
The Bengal tiger
The Bengal tiger replaced the lion as India's national animal in 1973, alongside the launch of Project Tiger.
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The nests used to make bird's nest soup are built almost entirely from what?
The bird's own hardened saliva
Edible-nest swiftlets breed in caves across Southeast Asia, building a shallow bracket on the bare rock from threads of gummy saliva that set hard. Gram for gram the harvested nests are among the most expensive animal products in the world.
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Which animal is the national animal of Thailand?
The elephant
The white elephant in particular is a royal symbol, and elephants appeared on the Siamese flag until 1917.
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Which animal is the national animal of China?
The giant panda
The giant panda is found in the wild only in China, and has been used in Chinese diplomacy since the 1950s.
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Which insect builds sheets of wax comb to store honey and raise its young?
The honeybee
A hive is a honeybee colony's home and the sheets of wax comb hanging inside it, built by the workers from wax squeezed out of glands on their own abdomens. A wild colony makes the same combs inside a hollow tree; a beekeeper's box simply gives them frames to hang them from.
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Which flightless bird is New Zealand's national symbol, and the nickname for New Zealanders?
The kiwi
The kiwi appeared on New Zealand military badges in the First World War, and the nickname for New Zealanders followed.
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Researchers identify individual wild tigers from camera-trap photos by looking at what?
Their stripe pattern
No two tigers carry the same arrangement of stripes, and one animal's two flanks differ from each other, so a photograph works like a fingerprint. Camera-trap surveys use it to count and track individuals over years without ever touching them.
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Prairie dogs live in sprawling colonies of closely packed burrows. What are those colonies called?
Towns
A prairie dog colony is called a town. It is split into wards, and each ward into family groups called coteries that share a set of burrow entrances and greet one another by touching noses. Historical accounts describe single towns running for thousands of square kilometres across the Great Plains.
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How many eyes does a typical spider have?
8
Most spiders have eight eyes, though some species have fewer.
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Which fish is largest by body mass?
Whale shark
The whale shark is the largest known fish.
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What do whales use to breathe at the ocean's surface?
Blowholes
Whales are mammals and must breathe air with lungs. Their blowholes are openings on top of the head, allowing quick breaths without lifting the whole body clear of the water.
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What was the heaviest fish ever caught on rod and reel, according to IGFA all-tackle world records?
Great white shark
Alfred Dean landed a 1,208 kg (2,664 lb) great white shark off Ceduna, South Australia, in April 1959 after just 70 minutes of fighting it. No other species on the IGFA's entire all-tackle list has ever come within 340 kg (750 lb) of that weight, and since great whites are now protected across most of their range, the record is effectively permanent.
Medium Animals Trivia Questions
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Which traditional collective noun is commonly used for a group of swans?
a bevy
A group in the air gets a different name: swans flying together in their distinctive V shape are usually called a wedge, while bevy stays reserved for birds on land or water.
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What is a group of hippos called?
a bloat
The traditional collective noun for hippos is a bloat. They spend the day packed into rivers and pools, sometimes dozens together, and come ashore at night to graze.
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What is a baby giraffe called?
A calf
A giraffe calf falls around two metres to the ground at birth, and is usually standing within an hour.
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What is a baby llama or alpaca called?
A cria
Cria is simply the Spanish word for a baby animal, adopted into English for camelids specifically.
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What is a baby zebra called?
A foal
Zebras are horses, so they take the horse terms. A zebra foal can stand within about twenty minutes of birth.
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Brown hares do not dig burrows. What is the name for the hollow in the grass where a hare crouches out the day?
A form
A hare presses a body-shaped depression into grass or a ploughed furrow, then sits in it with its ears flat and relies on stillness and camouflage. Leverets are born above ground, fully furred and with their eyes open, and are parked in small forms of their own.
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What is a baby hedgehog called?
A hoglet
Hoglets are born with soft white spines under the skin, which harden and darken within hours so the mother is not injured during birth.
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Which two animals support the shield on Australia's coat of arms?
A kangaroo and an emu
Kangaroos and emus were reportedly picked partly because neither animal walks backwards easily, a trait read as a symbol of a nation that only moves forward.
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What is a baby ferret called?
A kit
Kit is short for kitten, and the same word covers the young of foxes, beavers and rabbits as well as ferrets.
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What is a baby hare called?
A leveret
Leverets are born fully furred with their eyes open, unlike rabbit kits, which are born blind and bald.
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What is a group of crows called?
a murder
A murder is the traditional collective noun for crows.
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What is a baby turkey called?
A poult
Poult is used for the young of several game birds, and is the root of 'poultry'.
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What is a baby seal called?
A pup
Grey seal pups are born with white fur they moult within about three weeks, before they can safely swim.
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What is a baby pigeon or dove called?
A squab
Squabs stay in the nest far longer than most birds, which is why city pigeons seem to appear fully grown and baby pigeons are rarely seen.
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What is a group of giraffes called?
a tower
A tower is the traditional collective noun for giraffes.
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What is a group of baboons called?
a troop
A troop is the standard collective noun for baboons.
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A fox's underground home has a name of its own. What is it?
An earth
A fox lives in an earth, which is very often a rabbit burrow or an old badger tunnel it has widened rather than anything it dug from scratch. Urban foxes usually skip digging altogether and lie up under a shed or decking.
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What is a baby owl called?
An owlet
An eyas is specifically a young hawk or falcon, not an owl.
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Which bird spends summer at both ends of the planet?
Arctic tern
The Arctic tern nests during the northern summer, then flies south to the pack ice off Antarctica for the southern one. Tracked birds cover roughly 70,000 km a year on that loop, the longest migration of any animal, and see more daylight in a lifetime than any other creature.
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Where does an Atlantic puffin lay its egg?
At the end of a burrow dug in clifftop turf
A puffin digs about a metre into the soil on top of a cliff using its bill and feet, or moves into a burrow a rabbit already made, and lays a single egg in a chamber at the far end where gulls cannot see it.
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Where does a kingfisher nest?
At the end of a tunnel bored into a river bank
A pair takes turns flying bill-first at a vertical earth bank until a hole starts, then digs a tunnel around 60 to 90 centimetres long ending in a round chamber. The floor of that chamber ends up carpeted in coughed-up fish bones.
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About how much does a blue whale's heart weigh?
400 pounds
A blue whale's heart weighs roughly 400 pounds, about 180 kg. It beats surprisingly slowly: as few as two beats a minute on a deep dive, rising to around 35 when the animal surfaces to breathe.
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Dolphins and whales have to keep surfacing to breathe. How does their brain handle sleep?
One hemisphere sleeps at a time
Dolphins and whales shut down one half of the brain at a time, keeping the other half awake with the opposite eye open. That is enough to keep them swimming, watching for danger and rising to the surface for air.
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What body part helps a cheetah steer at high speed?
Tail
A cheetah's long, muscular tail provides balance and works like a rudder during sharp turns. This is especially important because the animal accelerates so quickly.
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The old British word 'byre' means a building for keeping which animals?
Cows
A byre is a cow house, a word still used across northern England, Scotland and Ireland. In the old longhouses of those regions the byre was simply the far end of the family's own home, with the cattle under the same roof and the floor sloped so the muck drained away from the living end.
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Which animal produces cube-shaped droppings?
Wombat
A wombat’s intestines shape its feces into cubes, which are less likely to roll away. Wombats stack the cubes to mark territory.
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Which sheep was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell?
Dolly
Dolly was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell at the Roslin Institute.
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What are young fish called once they have absorbed the yolk sac and begun feeding themselves?
Fry
Fry are fish that have used up their yolk sac and begun feeding themselves. Before that stage they are alevins.
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Which insects cultivate fungi as their main food source?
Leafcutter ants
Leafcutter ants cultivate fungus using collected plant material, and the fungus is their primary food.
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What microscopic structures let a gecko cling to a smooth pane of glass?
Tiny hairs called setae
Each toe carries millions of hair-like setae, and every seta splits at its tip into hundreds of finer spatulae. That brings a vast area of foot within a few nanometres of the surface, close enough for van der Waals attraction between molecules to hold the animal's whole weight. There is no glue and no suction, and the gecko lets go by peeling each toe from the tip.
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The giant armadillo is the heaviest of the armadillos. Roughly how much does a large adult weigh?
About 30 kg
A big giant armadillo weighs around 30 kg and stretches to about 1.5 metres including the tail, roughly the bulk of a large dog. It lives in South American forest and savanna, digs burrows big enough for other animals to move into afterwards, and carries the largest claw of any living mammal for tearing open termite mounds.
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The giant clam is the largest living bivalve. Roughly how long does its shell grow?
About 1.2 metres
Tridacna gigas reaches about 1.2 metres across the shell and 200 kg, and can live over a century wedged into an Indo-Pacific reef. Much of its food is made by algae farmed inside its own mantle tissue, which is what gives the exposed flesh its electric blue and green markings.
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Which ray has the greatest wingspan?
Giant manta ray
The giant manta ray measures about seven metres from wingtip to wingtip, more than any other ray. It cruises open ocean rather than lying on the seabed, has no sting in its whip-like tail, and feeds by filtering plankton, funnelling water into its mouth with two fleshy fins that unroll from either side of its head.
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How many vertebrae are in a giraffe's neck?
Seven
That is the same number found in almost all mammals, including humans, mice and whales. Each individual bone is stretched to more than 25 centimeters long, which is what gives the neck its height rather than extra bones.
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Roughly how long is the neck of an adult giraffe?
2.4 meters
A giraffe's legs are roughly as long as its neck, and even with that combined reach it still has to splay or bend its front legs to drink from a waterhole.
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Which wild canid is heaviest by adult body mass?
Gray wolf
Gray wolves are the largest wild members of the dog family.
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What collective noun is traditionally used for a group of crows?
Murder
Murder is a traditional collective noun for crows, part of a long list of colorful names for bird groups. It does not describe a special behavior unique to every gathering.
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Which animal astronaut became the first great ape in space, flying a suborbital Mercury mission in January 1961?
Ham
Ham was a chimpanzee trained to pull levers in response to flashing lights. He flew a suborbital Mercury flight on 31 January 1961, kept working the levers under acceleration and weightlessness, and was recovered alive from the Atlantic. Enos, another chimpanzee, reached orbit that November.
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The London street name Mews comes from a building originally put up to house what?
Hawks
To mew is to moult, and a mews was the shed where a falconer kept hawks while they were moulting and could not fly. The royal mews at Charing Cross was rebuilt as stables in the 1530s, so the word slid across to stable yards, and then to the lanes of converted stables that carry it today.
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Which snake is known for the greatest overall body mass?
Green anaconda
The green anaconda is the heaviest snake, even though the reticulated python is usually longer. Anacondas kill prey by constriction rather than venom.
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Which bird can fly backward as well as forward?
Hummingbird
A hummingbird's rotating shoulder joints let it generate lift on both the forward and the backward wing stroke, making it the only bird capable of sustained backward flight.
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Turritopsis dohrnii can revert to its juvenile polyp stage after reaching adulthood, earning it what nickname?
The immortal jellyfish
Under stress or injury this jellyfish reabsorbs its own tentacles, sinks to the seafloor and settles back into a polyp colony, then starts its life cycle over. Ageing never forces it to die, though predators and disease still do.
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Which animal has fingerprints that can resemble a human's?
Koala
Koala fingerprints have ridges and whorls that can look surprisingly human under magnification. This is an example of convergent anatomical detail, not close genetic kinship.
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Which living bird has the largest wingspan?
Wandering albatross
A wandering albatross can have a wingspan of about 3.5 meters. Its long, narrow wings let it glide over the ocean for hours with little flapping.
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Which sea turtle is heaviest by adult body mass?
Leatherback sea turtle
The leatherback is the largest and heaviest living sea turtle.
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How long is an African elephant’s pregnancy?
22 months
An African elephant’s pregnancy lasts about 22 months, the longest gestation of any land mammal. This lengthy development helps calves be born relatively well developed and able to walk soon after birth.
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Which of these birds routinely lives for 50 years or more in captivity?
Macaw
Large macaws are among the longest-lived birds kept by people: blue-and-yellow, scarlet and hyacinth macaws commonly reach fifty or sixty years, so a hand-reared bird can outlive the owner who bought it and is often written into a will. Lifespans in the wild are considerably shorter.
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Which mammal is known for the longest natural lifespan?
Bowhead whale
Bowhead whales can live for more than 200 years. Their thick blubber and slow metabolism help them survive in Arctic waters.
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At most, about how far does a monarch butterfly travel on its autumn migration to Mexico?
About 3,000 miles
Monarchs from the northern edge of the range fly as far as 3,000 miles to a handful of fir forests in central Mexico. The butterfly that arrives has never made the trip before, and it takes three or four short-lived generations to work back north again in spring.
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Which living animal is known for the most powerful measured bite?
Saltwater crocodile
In a 2012 study, a large saltwater crocodile produced a bite of about 16,400 newtons, roughly 3,700 pounds of force, the highest ever directly measured in a living animal. By contrast, the muscles that open its jaws are so weak that a person can hold them shut by hand.
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In the tall termite mounds of Africa, what is the towering part above ground mainly for?
Moving air through the nest
The colony itself lives in a nest at or below ground level. The tower above is a system of channels that works like a lung, driven by the mound heating in the sun and cooling again at night, flushing out the carbon dioxide that millions of insects produce and drawing fresh air in.
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What is a narwhal's tusk, anatomically speaking?
An enlarged canine tooth
The narwhal tusk is a tooth that grows through the upper lip, usually in males. Its surface contains millions of nerve endings and may help sense the environment.
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Which continent is the axolotl native to?
North America
Axolotls originated in the lakes around Mexico City in North America.
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In which ocean is the sea otter native?
North Pacific Ocean
Sea otters historically ranged along coasts bordering the North Pacific Ocean.
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An octopus has three hearts. Two of them pump blood to which organs?
The gills
A pair of branchial hearts push blood through the gills to pick up oxygen, and a third, larger systemic heart sends it on around the rest of the body. That systemic heart stops beating while the animal swims, which tires it quickly and is part of why octopuses prefer to crawl.
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Which is the only mammal whose body is covered in true scales?
Pangolin
A pangolin's overlapping plates are true scales of keratin. An armadillo only looks similar: its armour is bony plates under the skin, not scales.
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Which bird catches fish by scooping them up in a throat pouch?
Pelican
A pelican uses the large expandable pouch under its bill as a dip net, drains out the water, then swallows the fish straight away.
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Which monkey can hang by its tail alone, gripping with a bare, ridged pad near the tip?
Spider monkey
A spider monkey's tail works as a fifth limb: the last stretch of the underside is hairless and ridged like a palm, with enough strength and grip to take the animal's whole weight while all four limbs feed. Fully prehensile tails are found only in some New World monkeys; Old World species such as baboons and macaques have none.
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Which horse breed is renowned for explosive speed over short distances?
Quarter Horse
The Quarter Horse is named for beating all comers over a quarter of a mile, a distance it covers at around 55 mph. It is faster off the mark than a Thoroughbred, which wins over longer ground. Heavy hindquarters give it the drive, which is also why it dominates rodeo and ranch work. The Arabian, by contrast, is bred for endurance.
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Which living marsupial reaches the greatest adult body mass?
Red kangaroo
The red kangaroo is the largest living marsupial by adult body mass. Large males can weigh around 90 kilograms (200 pounds) and stand over 1.5 metres tall.
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Sea turtles drink seawater. Which organs let them shed the excess?
Salt glands
Sea turtles have large salt glands behind each eye that concentrate excess salt and excrete it as a thick, briny fluid. That is why a nesting turtle appears to be crying.
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What is the smallest living bird?
Bee hummingbird
The bee hummingbird weighs roughly 1.6 grams and is found only in Cuba. Its tiny size makes it smaller than many insects people encounter.
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In which ocean are Adélie penguins native?
Southern Ocean
Adélie penguins breed around Antarctica and forage in the surrounding Southern Ocean.
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Which small crustacean gathers in swarms dense enough to turn the water red, feeding baleen whales, seals and penguins?
Krill
Euphausia superba grows to about six centimetres long but travels in colossal swarms, and each animal carries about ten light-producing organs on its eyes, chest and belly that glow blue. That glow works as camouflage, matching the faint light from above so hunters looking up from below cannot pick out its silhouette.
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A skunk's spray gets its overpowering smell from compounds containing which element?
Sulfur
The stench comes from thiols, sulfur-bearing compounds the human nose can pick up at around ten parts per billion.
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Which animal is native only to Australia?
Tasmanian devil
The Tasmanian devil is native only to Australia, specifically the island of Tasmania. It is the world’s largest surviving carnivorous marsupial.
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Which vulture is the national bird of Colombia?
The Andean condor
The Andean condor has one of the largest wingspans of any flying bird and appears at the top of Colombia's coat of arms.
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Which bird is the national bird of India?
The Indian peacock
The Indian peafowl was adopted in 1963, chosen partly because it is found across the whole country and appears throughout Indian myth and art.
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Which animal is the national animal of Kenya?
The lion
The lion appears on Kenya's coat of arms holding the shield, and the Swahili word simba is widely known from it.
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A holt is the riverbank den of which animal?
The otter
An otter's holt is a hole in the bank, usually entered from below the waterline and often tucked under the roots of a waterside tree. When an otter rests above ground instead, in reeds or scrub, that spot has its own name: a couch.
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Which critically endangered eagle is the national bird of a Southeast Asian island nation?
The Philippine eagle
One of the largest eagles in the world, it is critically endangered and found nowhere else. Killing one carries a prison sentence.
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Which antelope is the national animal of South Africa?
The springbok
The springbok gives its name to the national rugby team, and appears on the coat of arms alongside the gemsbok.
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Which mythical creature is Scotland's national animal?
The unicorn
The unicorn has been a Scottish royal symbol since the 12th century, chosen because it was believed to be the natural enemy of the lion, which represented England.
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How long can a common swift stay continuously airborne?
About ten months
Adults manage this every year outside the breeding season, but young swifts go further: once they leave the nest, they may not land again for two or three years, until they are ready to breed themselves. They spend that whole stretch feeding, drinking and even sleeping on the wing.
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Which mammal has venom delivered through a spur on its hind leg?
Male platypus
Male platypuses have venomous ankle spurs that are especially active during the breeding season. The venom can cause severe pain in humans.
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Cetology is the branch of zoology devoted to which animals?
Whales, dolphins and porpoises
Cetology studies the cetaceans, the fully aquatic mammals that breathe air through a blowhole and never leave the water. Seals and sea lions belong to a separate group, the pinnipeds, which still come ashore to breed.
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What does the conservation body WWF stand for today?
World Wide Fund for Nature
It was founded as the World Wildlife Fund in 1961 and renamed in 1986 to reflect work beyond wildlife alone, though the original name is still used in the US and Canada.
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Field experiments point to which explanation for a zebra's stripes?
They stop biting flies landing
Researchers who dressed horses in striped coats found that horseflies approached as normal but failed to land, veering off or bumping into the surface. Biting flies carry serious disease for zebras, and stripe deterrence is now the best-evidenced explanation.
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Lolong, captured in the Philippines in 2011, holds the record for the longest crocodile ever measured in captivity. How long was he?
6.17 m (20 ft 3 in)
Lolong, a saltwater crocodile, was trapped after a string of attacks near Bunawan, Mindanao, and weighed in at 1,075 kg (2,370 lb) on a truck weigh-bridge. He beat the previous captive record of 5.48 m held by an Australian crocodile named Cassius, and died in captivity in 2013.
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Medusa, a reticulated python kept in a Kansas City haunted-house attraction, holds the record for longest snake ever measured in captivity. How long was she when measured in 2011?
7.67 m (25 ft 2 in)
Medusa weighed 158.8 kg (350 lb) at the time of measurement and lives at The Edge of Hell in Kansas City, Missouri. Reticulated pythons regularly out-length every other snake species, even though the heavier-bodied green anaconda still outweighs them.
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A Great Dane named Zeus holds the record for tallest dog ever measured. How tall was he at the shoulder in 2011?
1.118 m (44 in)
Zeus, owned by a family in Otsego, Michigan, stretched to 2.23 m (7 ft 4 in) when standing on his hind legs. A different, unrelated Great Dane later named Zeus was confirmed tallest dog living in 2022, but at 1.046 m he was still shorter than the original record.
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Which fish holds the record for largest freshwater fish ever recorded, at 300 kg (661 lb)?
Giant freshwater stingray
A female stingray nicknamed Boramy was hooked in Cambodia's Mekong River in June 2022, measured 4 m (13 ft) snout to tail, and was released alive as part of a tagging project. She dethroned a 293 kg (646 lb) Mekong giant catfish caught in Thailand in 2005, which had held the title for 17 years.
Hard Animals Trivia Questions
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What is the traditional collective noun for hyenas?
a cackle
A group of hyenas is traditionally called a cackle. The name reflects their distinctive, laughing-like vocalizations.
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What is a group of cats called?
a clowder
A group of cats is called a clowder. A group of kittens is sometimes called a kindle.
-
What is a baby porcupine called?
A porcupette
Porcupettes are born with soft quills that harden within a few days.
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What is a baby echidna or platypus called?
A puggle
Both are monotremes, the only mammals that lay eggs, and the hatchling is a hairless jellybean-sized puggle.
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Salmon and trout lay their eggs in a hollow scooped out of river gravel. What is that hollow called?
A redd
The female turns on her side and beats her tail against the river bed until the current lifts the loose gravel away, leaving a pit. She lays into it, and once the eggs are fertilised she sweeps gravel back over them, so the redd shows only as a pale patch of freshly turned stones.
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What is a young salmon called when it first migrates to the sea?
A smolt
A salmon goes from alevin to fry to parr to smolt, and it is at the smolt stage that its body adapts to salt water.
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What traditional collective noun refers to wild pigs?
a sounder
“Sounder” is the traditional collective noun for wild pigs; the other choices are established animal-group nouns for different animals.
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What is a baby oyster called?
A spat
Oyster larvae swim freely before settling onto a hard surface and cementing themselves down for life. That settled stage is spat.
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What is a baby spider called?
A spiderling
Spiderlings hatch already looking like tiny adults, and many disperse by 'ballooning' on strands of silk carried by the wind.
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The okapi lives wild in the rainforest of a single country. Which one?
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The okapi is found only in the rainforests of the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where its striped hindquarters break up its outline in dappled forest light. It is the giraffe's only living relative.
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What is a baby eel called?
An elver
European eels spawn in the Sargasso Sea, and the elvers spend up to three years drifting to European rivers.
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Which vulture or condor has the largest wingspan?
Andean condor
The Andean condor has the longest wingspan among living land vultures.
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Which fish has nearly transparent blood because it lacks hemoglobin?
Antarctic icefish
Antarctic icefish have no hemoglobin and no red blood cells. Oxygen dissolves straight into their plasma, helped by cold, oxygen-rich water, an oversized heart and unusually wide blood vessels.
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Which fish knocks insects from overhanging branches by shooting a jet of water?
Archerfish
An archerfish spits a forceful jet from its mouth at insects above the surface, knocking them into the water to eat.
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Which marine snail has the greatest shell length?
Australian trumpet
It lives on sandy sea floors across northern Australia and nearby Papua New Guinea, using a proboscis that can stretch past 25 centimeters to pull polychaete worms from their burrows.
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In which direction do a barreleye fish's tubular eyes usually point when looking for prey?
Upward
The barreleye's transparent head helps its eyes collect scarce deep-sea light. The eyes can also pivot forward when the fish captures prey.
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Which lizard can run briefly across the surface of water?
Basilisk lizard
A basilisk slaps its fringed hind feet against the water fast enough to trap air pockets and stay up, which is why it is nicknamed the Jesus Christ lizard.
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How does a camel cut its water loss during the desert day?
It lets its own body temperature rise
Instead of holding a steady temperature, a camel lets its body warm by six degrees Celsius or more across the day, so it does not begin sweating until late. It sheds the stored heat overnight, and the trick saves it several liters of water a day.
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Which cephalopod is heaviest by known body mass?
Colossal squid
The colossal squid has a heavier body than the giant squid and is the heaviest known cephalopod.
-
Which pelican is heaviest by body mass?
Dalmatian pelican
The Dalmatian pelican is the biggest pelican and one of the heaviest flying birds alive, reaching about 1.8 metres from bill tip to tail and 13 kilograms. It breeds from southeastern Europe across to Mongolia.
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Which marine mammal is known for the deepest recorded dives?
Cuvier's beaked whale
Cuvier’s beaked whales can dive beyond 3,000 meters. Their bodies store and conserve oxygen during extraordinarily long deep dives.
-
Which insect has been observed using the Milky Way to navigate?
Dung beetle
Nocturnal dung beetles roll their ball away in a straight line by steering on the bright band of the Milky Way. Their eyes are far too weak to pick out individual stars.
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An electric eel's shock comes from organs built out of stacked cells derived from which kind of tissue?
Muscle
Three paired electric organs fill most of an electric eel's body. They are stacks of flattened cells called electrocytes, modified muscle cells that gave up contracting and instead discharge together like the cells in a battery, delivering jolts of up to 600 volts.
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Which animal is native only to Antarctica?
Emperor penguin
Emperor penguins are native exclusively to Antarctica. They breed during the Antarctic winter, with males incubating the single egg on their feet for about two months.
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In 1963, which country launched the first cat into space?
France
France launched a Paris street cat named Félicette on a Véronique rocket from the Algerian Sahara on 18 October 1963. She rose about 160 km, spent five minutes weightless and parachuted back down alive, the only cat ever to fly in space and return.
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Which wild bovine is heaviest by adult body mass?
Gaur
Bulls carry a muscular ridge that peaks just behind the shoulders and can weigh around 1,500 kilograms. They live in the forests and grasslands of South and Southeast Asia, where the species is also called the Indian bison.
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A giraffe has valves in the veins of its neck. What do they stop happening when it lifts its head after drinking?
Blood draining from its brain
A dense network of small vessels at the base of the skull, called a rete mirabile, buffers the pressure swing as blood surges back toward the heart. Without it, giraffes would risk fainting each time they lifted their heads, the same head rush that makes a person dizzy after standing up too fast.
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Which beetle is heaviest by adult body mass?
Goliath beetle
Goliath beetles hold the record for heaviest adult beetles.
-
Which spider is heaviest by adult body mass?
Goliath birdeater
The female Goliath birdeater is recognized as the heaviest spider by mass.
-
In which marine region is the vaquita native?
Gulf of California
Vaquitas are endemic to the northern Gulf of California.
-
Which falcon has the largest wingspan?
Gyrfalcon
The gyrfalcon is the largest falcon and has a wingspan of about 1.5 metres.
-
Which bird holds the record for the highest confirmed flight?
Ruppell's vulture
A Ruppell's vulture was recorded at about 37,000 feet after colliding with an aircraft over West Africa.
-
Which lizard can squirt blood from vessels around its eyes?
Horned lizard
A cornered horned lizard raises the pressure in the sinuses behind its eyes until vessels rupture, spraying blood a metre or more. It tastes foul to coyotes and dogs.
-
Which marine crustacean is largest by leg span?
Japanese spider crab
The Japanese spider crab has the greatest recorded leg span of any marine crustacean.
-
What material makes up the filtering plates in a baleen whale's mouth?
Keratin
Baleen plates are keratin, the same tough protein as human fingernails and hair. They fray at the edges into bristles that strain prey from the water.
-
Which bird lays an egg unusually large for its body size?
Kiwi
A kiwi egg can reach about 20 percent of the mother's body weight. An ostrich lays the biggest egg of any bird, but it is only around 2 percent of hers.
-
Which animal is the largest terrestrial arthropod by mass?
Coconut crab
Coconut crabs are the largest terrestrial arthropods by mass and can weigh more than 4 kilograms. Their powerful claws help them climb and crack tough fruits, including coconuts.
-
Which land mammal cools itself partly by licking its forearms?
Kangaroo
Kangaroos lick their forearms so evaporation can cool blood near the skin. This helps them manage heat without relying heavily on sweating.
-
Which mammal makes the longest annual overland migration on Earth?
Caribou
Barren-ground caribou hold the record for travel on land. Herds such as the Porcupine herd shuttle between calving grounds near the Arctic coast and wintering forests hundreds of miles inland, and tracked individuals have covered well over 2,000 miles in a single year once the constant back-and-forth of daily foraging is counted.
-
Which tapir is heaviest by adult body mass?
Malayan tapir
The Malayan tapir is the largest of the four living tapir species.
-
Which crustacean is the only animal known to detect circularly polarized light?
Mantis shrimp
Mantis shrimp eyes hold the only cells in the animal kingdom known to pick up light spiralling clockwise or anticlockwise. Some species carry circularly polarized markings, possibly as a private signal.
-
Which fish can have taste-sensitive cells distributed across much of its body?
Catfish
Catfish can have up to about 175,000 taste-sensitive cells, including on their skin and barbels. This lets them sense chemicals in the water around them.
-
Which fish spends much of its life out of the water, hauling itself along on muscular pectoral fins?
Mudskipper
Mudskippers are gobies that climb, walk and skip about on tidal flats, using their pectoral fins like crutches and breathing through their skin and gill chambers.
-
Which mammal lives in eusocial underground colonies where a single queen produces all the young?
Naked mole-rat
A naked mole-rat colony has one breeding queen and non-breeding workers and soldiers, an insect-like social system almost unheard of among mammals.
-
Which is the only living cephalopod with an external shell?
Nautilus
Octopuses, squid and cuttlefish all lost the outer shell over evolutionary time. Only the nautilus still lives inside one, using its gas-filled chambers to control buoyancy.
-
Which continent is the pronghorn native to?
North America
Pronghorns are native to western and central parts of North America.
-
Which animal has the highest sustained speed over half a mile?
Pronghorn
Pronghorns can sustain roughly 55 mph for half a mile.
-
Which butterfly has the largest wingspan?
Queen Alexandra's birdwing
Named in 1907 by Lord Walter Rothschild for the wife of Edward VII, it survives only in a patch of rainforest in Papua New Guinea's Oro Province. Females can have a wingspan of 25 to 28 centimeters and wear muted brown and cream, while the far smaller males are black with iridescent blue-green patches.
-
Which flying bird is tallest by standing height?
Sarus crane
The sarus crane is recognized as the tallest flying bird.
-
Jonathan, a giant tortoise hatched around 1832, has lived since 1882 on which island?
St Helena
He lives on the lawn of Plantation House, the governor's official residence on an island so remote that Britain exiled Napoleon Bonaparte there in 1815. Now blind and without a sense of smell, he is still hand-fed and remains mobile.
-
A shark's ampullae of Lorenzini detect what?
Weak electric fields
The ampullae of Lorenzini are jelly-filled pores clustered around a shark's snout. They pick up the faint electric fields given off by other animals' muscles and nerves, letting a shark find prey buried in sand or hunt in complete darkness.
-
Which is the world's smallest mammal by body length?
Kitti's hog-nosed bat
Also called the bumblebee bat, it measures about 30 millimetres from nose to rump and weighs around two grams, and it roosts in limestone caves in western Thailand and southern Myanmar. Its rival for the title, the Etruscan shrew, is longer but about as light, so which animal counts as smallest depends on whether you measure length or weight.
-
Which fish has been filmed alive at the greatest depth?
Snailfish
It was filmed at 8,336 meters down in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench off Japan in August 2022, during a survey of deep ocean trenches. Snailfish cope with the crushing pressure there by having no gas-filled swim bladder and a gelatinous, water-based body that resists compression instead.
-
Which continent is the rhea native to?
South America
Rheas are flightless birds native to South America.
-
Which is the heaviest seal species in the world?
Southern elephant seal
A big bull southern elephant seal reaches about five metres and 3,700 kilograms, several times the weight of the females he guards on the beach. The northern elephant seal, his closest rival, tops out at roughly 2,300 kilograms. Southern bulls breed on sub-Antarctic islands and dive beyond a kilometre deep hunting squid.
-
Which crested bird was voted the national bird of Israel in 2008?
The hoopoe
The hoopoe won a public vote held for Israel's 60th anniversary, beating the goldfinch and the sunbird.
-
Which goat-antelope is the national animal of Bhutan?
The takin
Bhutanese legend credits the takin's odd appearance to a saint who assembled it from a goat's head and a cow's bones.
-
Which animal has been observed carrying coconut shell halves to build a shelter?
Veined octopus
The veined octopus can carry discarded coconut shells and assemble them into a temporary fort. This behavior is often cited as evidence of planning and tool use in an invertebrate.
-
Which deep-ocean animal has a transparent head?
Barreleye fish
Beneath that transparent shield sit two tubular, green-lensed eyes that usually point straight up to spot prey silhouetted against the faint light above. They swivel forward when the fish feeds, which researchers think lets it watch its meal while stealing scraps from the stinging tentacles of a siphonophore.
-
What unusual feature does a tuatara have beneath the skin on top of its head?
A light-sensitive third eye
The tuatara has a parietal eye on top of its skull, complete with a rudimentary lens and retina, though it becomes covered by scales as the animal matures. It cannot form images, and is thought to help regulate daily and seasonal rhythms by tracking light.
-
Which South American camelid produces the world's finest and most expensive natural fibre?
Vicuña
Vicuña fibre is the finest in commercial use, around 12 microns thick. The animals live wild in the high Andes and are caught and shorn only every couple of years, which is why vicuña cloth costs more than any other wool.
-
Which frog can survive with much of its body frozen?
Wood frog
Ice forms in the spaces between a wood frog's cells while glucose flooding the cells stops them freezing. Its heart stops entirely until it thaws in spring.
-
Which animals were aboard the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and return safely to Earth?
Tortoises
Two steppe tortoises rode the Soviet Zond 5 probe around the Moon in September 1968 and splashed down in the Indian Ocean, three months before Apollo 8 carried humans on the same loop. They survived the trip, having lost about a tenth of their body weight.
-
The Fenykövi elephant, the largest single elephant specimen ever recorded and now mounted in the Smithsonian's rotunda, was shot in Angola in 1955. About how much was it estimated to weigh alive?
About 11 tonnes (24,000 lb)
Hunter Josef J. Fényökövi felled the bull African elephant near the Cuando River and had it shipped to Washington, where taxidermists spent years mounting it. Standing 4 m (13 ft 2 in) at the shoulder, it remains the largest mounted land mammal in any museum.
-
A Siberian tiger named Jaipur, kept at a private New Jersey compound, holds the record for the heaviest tiger ever recorded in captivity. About how much did he weigh when measured in 1986?
About 420 kg (932 lb)
Jaipur measured 3.32 m (10 ft 11 in) nose to tail at age nine, roughly the weight of a small horse. Wild Siberian tigers rarely approach that size; captive tigers can outgrow their wild relatives on a steady diet with no need to hunt.
-
"Big Bill," a Poland China hog raised in Tennessee, holds the record for the heaviest pig ever recorded. How much did he weigh in 1933?
1,157.5 kg (2,552 lb)
Big Bill stood 1.52 m (5 ft) at the shoulder and was being trucked to the Chicago World's Fair for exhibition when he broke a leg and had to be put down. Nearly a century later, no verified pig has come close, though modern giant-hog stories like "Hogzilla" and the 2007 "Monster Pig" still fall a few hundred pounds short.
-
Which spider holds the record for the largest confirmed leg span of any spider, at 30 cm (12 in) across?
Giant huntsman spider
The record specimen of Heteropoda maxima was found in a cave in Laos and formally described only in 2001. Its leg span beats every other spider, even though the much bulkier Goliath birdeater remains heavier by body mass.
-
What is the greatest dressed weight ever recorded for a turkey?
39.09 kg (86 lb)
The bird, a stag named Tyson, was reared by British turkey farmer Philip Cook and won London's last-ever "heaviest turkey" competition in December 1989 before being auctioned for charity. Since the contest was discontinued after that year, the record can no longer be challenged under the same rules.
-
Which air-breathing marine mammal holds the record for the deepest dive ever measured, reaching 2,992 m (9,816 ft) down?
Cuvier's beaked whale
Researchers tagged Cuvier's beaked whales off the Southern California coast and recorded both the depth record and a separate dive lasting 137.5 minutes, published in 2014. Scientists still are not certain how the whales avoid decompression sickness at such extreme, repeated depths.
-
What is the IGFA all-tackle world record weight for a black marlin caught on rod and reel?
707.6 kg (1,560 lb)
Alfred Glassell Jr. caught the fish off Cabo Blanco, Peru, in August 1953 after a 105-minute fight, using a cero mackerel as bait. The marlin measured 174 in (4.4 m) long with an 81 in (2.1 m) girth and now hangs in the Smithsonian Institution.
-
What is the IGFA all-tackle world record weight for an Atlantic bluefin tuna caught on rod and reel?
679 kg (1,496 lb)
Ken Fraser hooked the giant bluefin off Aulds Cove, Nova Scotia, in October 1979 while trolling a mackerel, and it took a 45-minute fight before the crew could gaff it. The catch has outlasted more than four decades of advances in tackle and boat technology.
-
Which fish holds the record for heaviest bony fish ever recorded, at 2,744 kg (6,049 lb)?
Bump-head sunfish
The record specimen was found floating off Faial Island in the Azores in December 2021, measuring 3.6 m between fin tips, wider than it was long. It broke the previous mark of 2,300 kg, set by another bump-head sunfish caught near Kamogawa, Japan, in 1996.
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The giant oarfish holds the record for longest bony fish ever verified. How long was the record specimen, caught off Maine around 1885?
7.6 m (25 ft)
The fish, weighing 272 kg (600 lb), was caught by fishermen off Pemaquid Point. Oarfish rarely surface alive, so most sightings come from dead or dying specimens washed ashore, feeding centuries of "sea serpent" legends.
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