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50 free Endangered Species trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Some of the most famous animals on Earth are hanging on by a thread, and a few have already slipped away. This endangered species trivia quiz covers how we measure the danger, from the IUCN Red List categories and CITES to the US Endangered Species Act of 1973 and Endangered Species Day, and then tours the species themselves: giant pandas, tigers, snow leopards, Amur leopards, mountain and Cross River gorillas, orangutans, Javan and Sumatran rhinos, the northern white rhino's last two females, vaquitas, blue whales, kakapo, whooping cranes, California condors, pangolins, axolotls, gharials, Devils Hole pupfish and the Wollemi pine. It also remembers the ones we lost, such as the passenger pigeon and Lonesome George, and celebrates the comebacks: bald eagles and peregrines after DDT, the Arabian oryx, Przewalski's horse, the black-footed ferret found alive on a Wyoming ranch, sea otters, humpbacks and the Iberian lynx. The 50 questions run from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against the IUCN and documented sources, so it is safe to use in a classroom, a nature club or a pub quiz.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which organization maintains the Red List of Threatened Species, founded in 1964?
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature is based in Switzerland; the Red List is also called the Red Data Book.
Q 02Which Red List category, abbreviated LC, is used for species that are widespread and abundant?
Least Concern
Above it come Near Threatened, then the three threatened tiers, then Extinct in the Wild and Extinct.
Q 03Which US president signed the Endangered Species Act into law on December 28, 1973?
Richard Nixon
He had declared existing conservation efforts inadequate the year before.
Q 04CITES, the treaty on trade in endangered wildlife, entered into force in which year?
1975
Its text was finalized by 80 countries in Washington in 1973, so it is also called the Washington Convention.
Q 05Which animal appears on the logo of the World Wide Fund for Nature?
Giant panda
Sir Peter Scott drew the original logo when the fund was set up in 1961.
Q 06In 2016 the WWF's mascot species was moved from Endangered to which Red List category?
Vulnerable
China's fourth national survey counted 1,864 wild pandas over 18 months old.
Q 07Which pesticide thinned eggshells and drove bald eagles and peregrine falcons toward extinction in the mid-20th century?
DDT
Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring turned public opinion against it, and the US banned it for agricultural use.
Q 08In what year was the bald eagle removed from the US endangered species list altogether?
2007
By the 1950s only 412 nesting pairs remained in the lower 48 states.
Q 09Which bird became extinct in the wild in 1987 when the last 27 individuals were taken into captivity?
California condor
Its 3-metre wingspan is the widest of any North American bird; it has since been released in Arizona, Utah, California and Baja California.
Q 10Martha, the last passenger pigeon, died in 1914 at which zoo?
Cincinnati Zoo
The species had once numbered around 3 billion, the most abundant bird in North America.
Q 11The vaquita, the world's smallest cetacean, lives only in which body of water?
Gulf of California
Fewer than 19 remained in 2018; they drown in gillnets set illegally for totoaba fish.
Q 12Illegal fishing for which large fish, prized for its swim bladder, is the main cause of vaquita deaths?
Totoaba
The porpoise's name is Spanish for "little cow".
Q 13Which rhino is the rarest, surviving as a single wild population on one Indonesian island?
Javan
It once ranged as far as India, Bhutan and southern China.
After the last male died in 2018, which two female northern white rhinos were the sole survivors?
Q 21Declared extinct in 1979, the black-footed ferret was rediscovered in 1981 in which state?
Wyoming
A ranch dog near Meeteetse brought one home; up to 90 percent of the ferret's diet is prairie dogs.
Q 22By 1941, how many wild whooping cranes were left?
21
The remnant flock still migrates between coastal Texas and Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada; the total passed 800 in 2020.
Q 23Lonesome George, who died in 2012, was the last of which kind of animal?
Pinta Island tortoise
He was found on Pinta in 1971 and became a symbol of Galápagos conservation.
Najin and Fatu
They belong to a Czech zoo but have lived under armed guard at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.
Q 15Which is the smallest and hairiest of the five rhino species, with fewer than 80 mature individuals left?
Sumatran
It is the only two-horned rhino in Asia and the last of its genus.
Q 16The Amur leopard, one of the rarest big cats, is native to which region?
Southeastern Russia and northern China
In 2007 as few as 19 to 26 were thought to survive in the wild.
Q 17Mountain gorillas survive in two populations: the Virunga Mountains and which Ugandan national park?
Bwindi Impenetrable
Dian Fossey completed the first accurate census; the 2019 estimate was 1,063 animals.
Q 18Which great ape, the world's rarest, has under 250 mature adults on the Cameroon-Nigeria border?
Cross River gorilla
It is separated by about 300 km from the nearest western lowland gorillas.
Q 19How many orangutan species are recognized, all of them critically endangered?
Three
The Tapanuli orangutan, described in 2017, is oddly closer to the Bornean species than to its fellow Sumatran.
Q 20The kakapo of New Zealand is the world's only what?
Flightless parrot
It is also the heaviest parrot; the entire population passed through a bottleneck of just 49 birds.
Q 24In 2011, which antelope became the first animal to recover from Extinct in the Wild to a lower-risk category?
Arabian oryx
The last wild one was seen in 1972; zoo-bred animals were released from 1980.
Q 25Przewalski's horse has been reintroduced to Hustai National Park in which country?
Mongolia
It is also called the takhi.
Q 26What has devastated Tasmanian devil numbers since the late 1990s?
A contagious facial tumour disease
The devil became the largest carnivorous marsupial after the thylacine went extinct in 1936.
Q 27The saola, nicknamed the "Asian unicorn", was only discovered by science in 1992 in which mountains?
Annamite Range
It lives on the Vietnam-Laos border and has never survived long in captivity.
Q 28Red wolves were reintroduced in 1987 to a wildlife refuge in which US state?
North Carolina
The species had been declared extinct in the wild in 1980 so captive breeding could proceed.
Q 29The Florida panther is the only confirmed population of which big cat in the eastern United States?
Cougar
It occupies about 5 percent of its historic range.
Q 30In what year was the peregrine falcon removed from the US endangered species list?
1999
Its stoop of over 320 km/h makes it the fastest animal on the planet.