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50 free Australian Animals trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Australia spent tens of millions of years cut off from everything else, and its animals show it: a mammal that lays eggs and hunts by electricity, a marsupial whose droppings are cubes, a bird that fought the army to a standstill, and more venomous snakes than harmless ones. Some 69% of its mammals and 93% of its reptiles live nowhere else. These 50 questions cover the famous and the odd: why a joey is the size of a lima bean, what koalas' closest relatives are, the scientists who thought the platypus was a hoax, the wombat's Ig Nobel Prize, the thylacine's last day at Hobart Zoo, the Lewis guns of the Emu War, cassowary casques, swooping magpies, quokka selfies, dingo fences, the inland taipan's lost 90 years, the thorny devil's skin that drinks, and the cane toads that were meant to save sugar cane. Easy questions stick to kangaroos and koalas; the hardest ask about Aboriginal language origins and state emblems. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a classroom or pub night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which is the largest of all kangaroo species?
Red
It is also the largest land mammal native to Australia and the largest living marsupial.
Q 02What is a baby kangaroo called?
Joey
Males are bucks, boomers or old men; females are does, flyers or jills.
Q 03Roughly how big is a kangaroo joey at birth?
A lima bean
It crawls into the pouch and usually stays there for about nine months.
Q 04Along with the kangaroo, which bird appears on Australia's coat of arms?
Emu
The kangaroo also serves as the logo of Qantas and the roundel of the Royal Australian Air Force.
Q 05Kangaroos are the only large mammals to move primarily by doing what?
Hopping on two legs
Elastic tendons in the hind legs store energy, so faster hopping costs little extra effort.
Q 06The word 'kangaroo' comes from a word in which Aboriginal language?
Guugu Yimithirr
The word gangurru referred to eastern grey kangaroos in the Cooktown area.
Q 07What are the koala's closest living relatives?
Wombats
It is the only surviving member of the family Phascolarctidae and is not a bear at all.
Q 08Up to how many hours a day does a koala sleep?
Twenty
Its eucalyptus diet is so low in nutrition and so toxic that resting is the only option.
Q 09Which tree's leaves make up most of a koala's diet?
Eucalyptus
The leaves contain toxic compounds that deter most other mammals from eating them.
Q 10What did scientists in 1799 conclude when they first examined a preserved platypus?
It was a fake
The duck-billed, egg-laying, beaver-tailed mammal looked like several animals sewn together.
Q 11How does the platypus find prey underwater with its eyes, ears and nose shut?
Electrolocation
It shares this sense with the echidnas, its fellow monotremes.
Q 12Where does a male platypus deliver its venom from?
A hind-foot spur
It is one of the very few venomous mammals, and the sting is extremely painful.
Q 13How many living species of monotreme (egg-laying mammal) are there?
Five
The platypus plus four species of echidna, all native to Australia and New Guinea.
Q 14What is a baby echidna called?
Q 21What earned the thylacine its 'tiger' nickname?
Its stripes
Dark stripes ran across its back; its wolf-like shape earned it the name Tasmanian wolf too.
Q 22Which is the tallest native bird in Australia?
Emu
Only the two African ostrich species stand taller among living birds.
Q 23Which emu parent incubates the eggs and raises the chicks?
The male
He barely eats or drinks for around eight weeks and loses a lot of weight.
Q 24How fast can an emu sprint?
Puggle
They stay in their mother's den for up to a year before leaving.
Q 15What distinctive shape are a wombat's droppings?
Cube-shaped
The cubes stack and don't roll, which helps wombats mark territory; the finding won a 2019 Ig Nobel Prize.
Q 16When first recorded in 1798, the wombat was said to look much like which animal?
A badger
Places like Badger Creek in Victoria and Badger Corner in Tasmania are named after wombats.
Q 17The devil became the world's largest carnivorous marsupial after which animal's extinction?
The Tasmanian tiger
The last thylacine died in 1936, and devils themselves vanished from the mainland about 3,500 years ago.
Q 18What has devastated Tasmania's wild devils since the 1990s?
A facial tumour disease
First seen in 1996, it led to the species being declared endangered in 2008.
Q 19The Tasmanian devil is notable for which physical feat?
Strongest bite for its size
Its large head and neck let it crunch through bone; it can also climb trees and swim rivers.
Q 20Where did the last known thylacine die in 1936?
Hobart Zoo
Around 5,000 had lived wild in Tasmania before bounty hunting began in the 19th century.
48 km/h
The soldiers of the 1932 'Emu War' compared the birds to tanks for their toughness.
Q 25What weapons did Australian soldiers use in the 1932 Emu War?
Lewis machine-guns
The emus split into small, mobile groups and the cull was abandoned as uneconomic.
Q 26The laughing kookaburra belongs to which bird family?
Kingfishers
Its laugh is a territorial call, often used as a jungle sound effect in films.
Q 27Which Australian bird has often been labelled 'the world's most dangerous bird'?
Cassowary
Statistically the ostrich is deadlier, killing two or three people a year in South Africa.
Q 28What is the horn-like helmet on Australia's big rainforest ratite called?
Casque
Made of keratin-covered skin, it grows with age and may act as a thermal radiator.
Q 29Which bird is famous for swooping cyclists and walkers in spring?
Magpie
Fewer than 9% of magpies swoop, and they can recognise at least 100 different people.
Q 30Which is the largest bird of prey in Australia?
Wedge-tailed eagle
Its wingspan can reach 2.84 m, and pairs have been known to kill adult kangaroos.