Emu Trivia
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86 free Emu trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The emu is Australia's tallest bird and the second-tallest in the world, and this quiz covers the animal and its strange domestic life: males that sit on the eggs for eight weeks without eating, drinking or defecating and lose a third of their weight; hens that boom like drums, fight over mates and wander off to lay in other nests; dark green eggs, feathers with two shafts, three-toed feet, a 48 km/h sprint and a jumping kick aimed at dingoes. It also covers the emu in Australian life: the Dutch sailors who saw it first in 1696, the 'New Holland cassowary' of 1789, the three island subspecies wiped out after settlement, the Great Emu War of 1932 in which the army's Lewis guns lost to 20,000 birds, the emu in the sky in Aboriginal astronomy, the coat of arms and 50-cent coin, the Light Horse plumes, Rod Hull's puppet, and the modern industry in oil, leather and meat. Easy questions ask which country and how many toes; hard ones want incubation days, stride lengths and ammunition counts. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the emu and the Emu War, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Our Ostrich and Australian Animals quizzes go wider.
30 of 86 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Among the world's birds, where does the emu rank in height?
Second, after the ostrich
Second, after the ostrich: emus stand up to 1.9 m but cannot fly, so a cornered bird defends itself by kicking with its big three-toed feet.
Q 02How does the IUCN Red List rate the emu's conservation status?
Least Concern
Least Concern: more than 630,000 adults roam the mainland, and permanent watering points for sheep and cattle have let emus spread into dry country that once shut them out.
Q 03Nomadic emus can walk hundreds of kilometres across the outback, mainly following what?
Recent rainfall
Recent rainfall: a downpour brings a flush of new grass, seeds and insects, so emus trek to wherever it has fallen instead of holding one territory all year.
Q 04At the 1972 Royal Variety Performance, a comedian's Emu puppet attacked the bouquet of which royal?
The Queen Mother
The Queen Mother met the puppet after the show and it went for her bouquet: attacking anyone within reach was the whole act, and royalty got no exemption.
Q 05A long Australian fence that now holds back migrating emus was first built in the 1900s to stop what?
Rabbits
Rabbits: the rabbit-proof fences of 1902-07 mattered less as that threat faded, but proved so useful against emu migrations that the barrier was later known as the Emu Fence.
Q 06The word 'emu' probably comes from 'ema', a name for big flightless birds in which language?
Portuguese
Portuguese: ema first named other big flightless birds, and English borrowed it as 'emia' and 'emeu' before the name settled on Australia's bird.
Q 07Emus were once common along which coast of Australia, where they are now scarce?
The east coast
The east coast: emus were plentiful there when Europeans arrived, but the rapid growth of towns and cities along that shore has pushed them out.
Q 08In Australian slang, what do people do on an 'emu parade'?
Pick up litter
Pick up litter: an emu parade is a line of soldiers or schoolchildren sent to comb an area for rubbish, and schools have long handed the chore out as a punishment.
Q 09The emu's genus name, Dromaius, comes from a Greek word meaning what?
Racer
Racer: the name fits a bird that can sprint at nearly 50 km/h, and the same Greek root for running also gave the dromedary camel its name.
Q 10The emu's closest relatives are which birds?
Cassowaries
Cassowaries share the order Casuariiformes with the emu, which has much in common physically with the African ostrich but is a far closer cousin of its helmeted rainforest neighbours.
Q 11Emus, kiwis and rheas all belong to which group of birds?
Ratites
Ratites: the name comes from the Latin for raft, because their flat breastbones lack the keel that anchors the flight muscles of flying birds.
Q 12An emu's fresh feathers grow in almost black, so what turns them grey-brown?
Sunlight
Sunlight: the sun bleaches each new coat from near-black to grey-brown, and the same shaggy plumage works as a sunshade that keeps the skin beneath from overheating.
Q 13What is unusual about the structure of an emu feather?
Two shafts emerge from a single base
Two shafts emerge from a single base, and the barbs lack the hooks that zip most feathers together, so the plumage hangs loose and shaggy, more like hair.
Q 21Besides loss of habitat, which modern hazard is counted among the main threats to wild emus?
Vehicle collisions
Vehicle collisions: roads now cut across the country emus roam, and long barrier fences block their migrations as well.
Q 22What is unusual about the female emu's part in courtship?
She does the wooing
She does the wooing: the hen opens the courtship with low calls to the male and stays the dominant partner while the pair is forming.
Q 23What colour are emu eggs?
Green
Green: the thick shell is dark on the outside with paler green and white layers beneath, so carvers cut down through it to make cameo-like pictures.
Q 14An emu's wings are vestigial, but each has what at its tip?
A small claw
A small claw tips each wing. The wings are only about 20 cm long and hidden in the plumage, yet emus still flap them when running, perhaps to steady themselves.
Q 15What colour is the skin of an emu's neck, showing through its sparse feathers?
Pale blue
Pale blue skin shows through the neck's sparse feathers, darker in some birds. The body plumage shifts too, rufous on red soils and darker in damp country, which works as camouflage.
Q 16What protects an emu's eyes from dust in windy country?
Translucent nictitating membranes
Translucent nictitating membranes sweep sideways across each eye like a visor, so the emu can keep watching through the blowing dust of arid country.
Q 17Emus have a tracheal pouch that becomes more prominent when?
During the mating season
During the mating season the pouch, part of the windpipe, inflates to power the deep booming calls that carry the courtship.
Q 18In the continent's west, which seasonal pattern do emu migrations follow?
North in summer, south in winter
North in summer, south in winter: flocks cover hundreds of kilometres at up to 25 km a day, which is why a long barrier fence now shields grain farms from them.
Q 19Which sex of emu does most of the booming?
The hens
The hens do most of the booming, to announce a territory and warn off rivals, while the cocks mostly answer in grunts.
Q 20Besides small stones for grinding food, emus are known to eat what puzzling substance?
Charcoal
Charcoal, for reasons that remain unclear. The rest of the diet matters more to the bush: seeds an emu swallows often pass through whole and are dropped far away as it roams.
Q 24An incubating emu father gets to his feet several times a day and does what?
Turns the eggs
Turns the eggs: that is about the only thing that gets him up, because he sits almost without a break for the eight weeks the clutch takes to hatch.
Q 25What keeps a male emu alive through eight weeks on the nest?
Stored body fat
Stored body fat carries him through: he does not eat or drink for the whole sitting and loses up to a third of his weight before the chicks hatch.
Q 26Laid one by one, emu eggs hatch when?
Nearly together
Nearly together: however long the clutch took to lay, it all hatches within days, and the chicks can leave the nest only a few days later.
Q 27Once the male starts brooding, what does the hen usually do?
Wanders off and may pair with other males
Wanders off and may pair with other males: in a good season a hen can lay three clutches, each one left for a different male to sit on.
Q 28Which animal is the emu's main predator in modern Australia?
The dingo
The dingo goes for the head, so the emu leaps and then kicks or stamps on it on the way down, keeping its neck out of reach.
Q 29Which is the only bird of prey capable of attacking a fully grown emu?
Wedge-tailed eagle
The wedge-tailed eagle swoops at the head and neck, trying to break it, and against an attack from above the emu's usual leap-and-kick defence is no help.
Q 30The Emu War of 1932 was fought in which state?
Western Australia
Western Australia: the flocks hit marginal wheat country around Campion, where ex-soldiers turned farmers asked the defence minister to send in the army.