Animals are the easiest trivia topic to start a kid on and the hardest to keep an older kid interested in, because everyone already knows the giraffe is the tallest. This list solves that by running from questions a five year old can shout out to questions that will stop an adult.
Who Smarted? has spent years making episodes about elephants, axolotls, sharks and the animals nobody has heard of, so the hard section here is built from the things that genuinely surprised our own writers. 85 questions, every answer included, banded into easy, medium and hard.
Read straight down, or jump to the band that matches whoever is playing.
Jump to a section:
Easy
Medium
Hard
How to Play This List
Three setups depending on who is in the room.
- One child, ages 4 to 7: Easy section only, no scoring. Let them guess twice before you give it. The animal group names in the medium section make good bonus questions because guessing is half the fun.
- Mixed ages: Alternate: easy question to the youngest, hard question to the oldest, medium to everyone. Keeps a six year old and an eleven year old in the same game.
- Classroom or older kids: Start at the medium section and use a 10 second timer. The hard section works as a bonus round worth double.
Bonus Animal Trivia Video
Before you dive in, here is a Trusty Trivia episode on the most dangerous animals.
Easy Animal Trivia Questions for Kids
1. What is the tallest animal in the world?
Answer: A giraffe
2. How many legs does an octopus have?
Answer: Eight
3. What animal is known as man’s best friend?
Answer: A dog
4. What bird can fly backward?
Answer: A Hummingbird
5. Which animal is called a ‘Joey’?
Answer: Baby kangaroo
6. What is a group of lions called?
Answer: A pride
7. What does a panda eat?
Answer: Bamboo
8. How many legs does a lobster have?
Answer: Ten
9. What is the largest mammal?
Answer: The blue whale
10. Which animal never sleeps?
Answer: This one is a trick. Every animal scientists have studied rests in some way. Bullfrogs were the famous answer for years, but researchers now think they rest too.
11. Where is a shrimp’s heart located?
Answer: In its head
12. How many years can a snail sleep?
Answer: Three years
13. What is a group of fish called?
Answer: A school
14. What is the slowest mammal in the world?
Answer: The three-toed sloth
15. What is the smallest reptile in the world?
Answer: Leaf chameleon
16. What is the fastest land animal?
Answer: The cheetah, which can hit about 70 miles per hour in short bursts
17. What is the only mammal that can truly fly?
Answer: The bat
18. What is a baby goat called?
Answer: A kid
19. Which mammal lays eggs instead of giving birth?
Answer: The platypus, along with its cousin the echidna
20. Which bird lays the biggest egg?
Answer: The ostrich
21. What is a group of crows called?
Answer: A murder
22. What is the largest species of shark?
Answer: The whale shark
23. What is a baby swan called?
Answer: A cygnet
24. What is a baby frog called?
Answer: A tadpole
25. What do you call a group of wolves?
Answer: A pack
26. How many legs does a butterfly have?
Answer: Six, like every insect
Medium Animal Trivia Questions for Kids
27. What dog breed has a black tongue?
Answer: Chow Chow
28. Can dogs see the color red?
Answer: No. Dogs see blues and yellows well, but greens and reds look much the same to them.
29. How many teeth does a shark have?
Answer: It depends on the species. A great white keeps about 300 at a time, and a shark can grow and shed thousands across its life.
30. What is the difference between an African and Asian elephant?
Answer: Their ears! African elephants have larger ears and Asian elephants have smaller ears.
31. Which mammal has the most powerful bite in the world?
Answer: A Hippo
32. What is a male swan called?
Answer: A Cob
33. What is a rhino’s horn made out of?
Answer: Keratin
34. What is the tallest species of penguin?
Answer: Emperor penguins
35. What is the heaviest species of monkey?
Answer: Mandrill
36. What is the first thing a caterpillar eats after it hatches?
Answer: Its own eggshell
37. What is the difference between venomous and poisonous?
Answer: Poison is toxic if it enters your body through ingestion, inhaling, or absorption through the skin. Venomous is when the toxin is injected into you such as snakes with their fangs or the stingers on a scorpion.
38. What color is a polar bear’s skin?
Answer: Black
39. What organ do ants lack?
Answer: Lungs
40. What bird is the national symbol of New Zealand?
Answer: Kiwi
41. What breed of cat has no tail?
Answer: A Manx
42. What is a group of owls called?
Answer: A parliament
43. What is a group of flamingos called?
Answer: A flamboyance
44. How many bones are in a shark’s skeleton?
Answer: None. A shark’s skeleton is made of cartilage, the same bendy material as the tip of your nose
45. Do snakes have eyelids?
Answer: No. Each eye is covered by a clear scale called a brille, which is why snakes never blink
46. Which animal sleeps standing up?
Answer: Horses. They can lock their leg joints in place and doze without falling over
47. What is the fastest bird in the world?
Answer: The peregrine falcon, which passes 200 miles per hour in a dive
48. How long is a giraffe’s tongue?
Answer: About 18 to 20 inches, and it is dark purple
49. Which land animal lives the longest?
Answer: The giant tortoise, which can pass 150 years
50. What is a group of jellyfish called?
Answer: A smack
51. What is the largest of the big cats?
Answer: The tiger
52. What makes every zebra different from every other zebra?
Answer: Its stripe pattern, which is unique the way a fingerprint is
53. What is a group of porcupines called?
Answer: A prickle
Hard Animal Trivia Questions for Kids
54. What is the main difference between a Dromedary camel and a Bactrian camel?
Answer: Dromedary camels have one hump and a Bactrian camel has two humps.
55. What is the scientific name for a sea comb? (hint: it is not a jellyfish)
Answer: A Ctenophore
56. How many hearts does an octopus have?
Answer: Three
57. What is the defining characteristic of a queen bee?
Answer: Her abdomen is much longer than a worker bee’s
58. What bird has the largest wingspan?
Answer: Wandering albatross with a span ranging from 8.2 to 11 feet.
59. Nests of which bird are considered a delicacy in Asia?
Answer: Swiftlets
60. What is the smallest mammal that can exist in the ocean?
Answer: Sea otters
61. How many eyes does a honeybee have?
Answer: Five
62. Why do otters hold hands in the water?
Answer: So they won’t drift apart while sleeping
63. How many degrees can owls rotate their heads?
Answer: 270 degrees
64. Which animal is invisible when seen in infrared cameras?
Answer: Polar bears
65. What is the rarest leopard in the world?
Answer: Amur leopard
66. How high can penguins jump?
Answer: Up to about 6 to 9 feet, launched straight out of the water
67. How long does it take for a sloth to digest its food?
Answer: 30 days
68. What type of animal is a ‘Flemish Giant’?
Answer: A rabbit
69. Binturongs are said to smell like what type of popular snack?
Answer: Popcorn
70. What is a group of pandas called?
Answer: An embarrassment
71. What is the loudest animal in the world?
Answer: Sperm whale
72. How much bamboo does a giant panda eat in a day?
Answer: 84 pounds
73. How long can camels go without water?
Answer: Over a week
74. Which animal has fingerprints almost identical to a human’s?
Answer: The koala
75. How many hearts does an earthworm have?
Answer: Five pairs of aortic arches that work like hearts
76. Which animal can regrow a lost limb?
Answer: The axolotl, which can regrow legs, tail, and parts of its heart and brain
77. Why does a chameleon really change color?
Answer: Mostly to signal its mood to other chameleons and to control its temperature. Hiding is only a small part of it
78. What sound does a giraffe make?
Answer: A low hum, mostly at night, at a pitch so deep humans barely notice it
79. Which animal has the largest eyes on Earth?
Answer: The colossal squid, with eyes about the size of a dinner plate
80. Which mammal dives the deepest?
Answer: Cuvier’s beaked whale, recorded below 9,800 feet
81. What is the only continent where wild giraffes live?
Answer: Africa
82. Which animal has blue blood?
Answer: The horseshoe crab. Its blood uses copper to carry oxygen instead of iron
83. How long can a tardigrade survive without water?
Answer: Years, by drying out almost completely and then reviving
84. Which bird can sleep while it is flying?
Answer: The frigatebird, which rests half its brain at a time
85. What is unusual about a wombat’s droppings?
Answer: They come out cube shaped
More Animal and Nature Trivia
Keep going with these:
- Dinosaur Trivia for Kids: 85 questions with answers
- Science Trivia for Kids: 75 questions with answers
- Dog Fun Facts for Kids: 50 tail wagging facts
- Trivia Questions for Kids: The 135 question master list across 8 topics
- Sports Trivia for Kids: 85 questions across every major sport
- Soccer Trivia for Kids: 65 questions with answers
- Riddles for Kids: 179 riddles with answers
Hear the Animal Episodes
Most of the strange facts in the hard section started as a Who Smarted? episode. Try Trusty Trivia: Elephants or How Are New Animal Species Discovered?, then subscribe at whosmarted.com for a new episode every weekday.
