Nature trivia questions and answers
30 nature trivia questions with the answers and a fact for each: mammals, birds, reptiles, sharks and other sea life, fossils and the Ice Age, flowers, herbs and the weather. Read them as an animal quiz for yourself, use them for a pub quiz round, or press the button and play a Nature round live with everyone answering on their own phone.
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The 30 nature quiz questions
- 1Sharks
The hammerhead shark's wide head is packed with sensors that detect what?
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AElectric fields
The ampullae of Lorenzini pick up the faint electrical signals of prey buried in the sand; hammerheads sweep their heads over the seabed like metal detectors.
- 2Weather
Large raindrops falling through the air are shaped most like…?
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CHamburger buns
Air resistance flattens the underside of a falling drop; tiny ones stay spherical, and really big ones split apart.
- 3Reptiles
Alligators are found in the wild in just two countries: the United States and…?
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AChina
The Chinese alligator is a tiddler next to its American cousin, rarely topping 2 metres, and is critically endangered.
- 4Rodents
Which rodent lives in insect-style colonies ruled by a single breeding queen?
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ANaked mole-rat
They can live past 30, barely feel acid burns and survive 18 minutes without oxygen — the rodent world's superheroes.
- 5Flowers
The sunflower is the national flower of which country?
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BUkraine
Young sunflowers track the sun from east to west each day, then swing back overnight to face the sunrise.
- 6Phenomena
The pleasant earthy smell when rain falls on dry ground is called…?
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DPetrichor
Two Australian scientists coined the word in 1964, from the Greek for 'stone' and ichor, the blood of the gods.
- 7
Which dinosaur had a row of bony plates along its back and spikes on its tail?
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CStegosaurus
For an animal the size of a bus, its brain was tiny — about the size of a hot dog. The tail spikes are nicknamed the 'thagomizer', after a Far Side cartoon.
- 8Wildlife
Which bird lays the largest egg?
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BOstrich
One ostrich egg is roughly two dozen hen's eggs.
- 9
Which mammal has the longest pregnancy, at around 22 months?
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AAfrican elephant
Newborn elephants weigh around 100 kilograms and can stand within an hour of birth.
- 10Sharks
Which shark is known for heading far up rivers — one was even caught in the Mississippi in Illinois?
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DBull shark
Special kidneys let it cope with fresh water, and bull sharks have long been found in Lake Nicaragua, far inland from the Caribbean.
- 11Fossils
Ammonites, the spiral-shelled fossils, were most closely related to which living animal?
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BSquid
Around Whitby they were sold as 'snakestones' — petrified serpents, sometimes with a head carved on for effect.
- 12Mammals
Which animal's fur can turn green thanks to algae growing in it?
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CSloth
The algae doubles as camouflage; sloths only climb down from the trees about once a week, to go to the loo.
- 13Fossils
Fossil hunter Mary Anning is popularly said to have inspired which tongue-twister?
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AShe sells seashells
The link is probably a myth, but Anning did sell fossils from a shop on England's south coast, and found the first properly identified ichthyosaur aged 12.
- 14Eras
The Mesozoic Era — the age of the dinosaurs — began with which period?
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CTriassic
The Triassic ended with its own mass extinction about 201 million years ago, handing the dinosaurs the keys to the Jurassic.
- 15
Which flower is the Netherlands most famous for growing?
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BTulip
Tulips came to Europe from the Ottoman Empire. In the 'tulip mania' of 1637 a single rare bulb could sell for the price of a house.
- 16Herbs
Basil belongs to the same plant family as which other herb?
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DMint
The family also takes in rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano and lavender — their square stems are the giveaway.
- 17Birds
The bee hummingbird, the world's smallest bird, is native to which country?
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CCuba
Fully grown it weighs about 2 grams — little more than half a 1p coin — and lays eggs no bigger than a coffee bean.
- 18Bears
Under all that white fur, what colour is a polar bear's skin?
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DBlack
The fur isn't really white either — each hair is a hollow, colourless tube that scatters the light.
- 19
What is the largest animal ever known to have lived on Earth?
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ABlue whale
Blue whales reach around 30 metres and 150 tonnes — bigger than any dinosaur — with a heart the size of a small car.
- 20
Which is the smallest recognised breed of dog?
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CChihuahua
It's named after the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Adults typically weigh less than three kilograms.
- 21Cephalopods
How many limbs does a squid have, arms and tentacles combined?
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CTen
Eight arms plus two longer tentacles that shoot out to grab prey; octopuses make do with eight arms and no tentacles.
- 22Amphibians
The axolotl, famous for regrowing lost limbs, is a type of…?
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CSalamander
Axolotls never really grow up — they keep their feathery gills and stay in the water for life, a trait called neoteny.
- 23Storms
The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on the first day of which month?
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BJune
It runs until 30 November, with activity usually peaking around 10 September.
- 24Storms
Hurricanes are rated on the Saffir-Simpson scale from Category 1 up to Category…?
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A5
Category 5 starts at sustained winds of 157 mph; Herbert Saffir was a structural engineer and Robert Simpson a meteorologist.
- 25Seeds
The coco de mer, bearer of the world's largest seed, grows wild only in which island nation?
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CSeychelles
Its cheeky double-lobed nut, which can weigh over 15 kg, was prized by sailors long before anyone knew which tree it fell from.
- 26Ice Age
The La Brea Tar Pits, stuffed with Ice Age fossils, sit in the middle of which US city?
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BLos Angeles
'La brea' is Spanish for 'the tar', so 'the La Brea Tar Pits' means 'the the tar tar pits'.
- 27
What is the largest species of bear?
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BPolar bear
Big males top 600 kg. They're classed as marine mammals, spending much of their lives on sea ice, and their skin is black under the white fur.
- 28Weather
A classic snowflake has how many points?
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BSix
Vermont farmer Wilson 'Snowflake' Bentley photographed more than 5,000 of them from 1885 and never found two alike.
- 29Early humans
'Lucy', the 3.2-million-year-old hominin skeleton found in 1974, was unearthed in which country?
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CEthiopia
She was named after 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', which the team played on repeat in camp the night she was found.
- 30Birds
A group of owls is called a…?
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DParliament
Owls can't swivel their eyes in their sockets, which is why they turn their heads through about 270 degrees instead.
More questions: Science triviaGeography triviaHuman body triviaAll categories
Nature quiz FAQ
Can I use these nature trivia questions for my own quiz night?
That is what the page is for. Read them out at a pub quiz, paste them into a work quiz or a family quiz night, and keep the answers hidden until the table has committed. If you would rather not keep score by hand, the button on this page runs a Nature round on everyone's phones.
Are the answers on the page?
Yes. Every question has a "Show the answer" toggle with the right option and a one-line fact, so you can quiz yourself first or read straight through with the answers open.
How do I play a Nature quiz round live?
Press "Play a Nature round". It opens the host page with the Nature category already picked. The room shows a join code, everyone else opens huddlequiz.com/join on their phone and types it, and ten questions later there is a winner on the board. No accounts and nothing to install.
Will the live game ask the same questions?
Some of them. The game draws at random from a bigger Nature pool, of which this page is a sample, so a live round mixes questions you have read here with ones you have not.
How hard are they?
Mixed. They are written for adults and teenagers at pub-quiz level, so a table of four should get most of them between them and argue about the rest.