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This guinea pig trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the small, loud, opinionated rodent that is neither a pig nor from Guinea. It runs from the Andes, where cavies were domesticated for food around 5000 BC and are still eaten by the tens of millions, to the Elizabethan court where they became exotic pets, to the laboratories that turned the animal's name into a synonym for test subject and used it to crack the mystery of scurvy. The easy questions ask what a wheek is, what pet cavies mostly eat and whether they can climb. The medium ones cover breeds (Abyssinian, Peruvian, skinny pig), lifespan, gestation, popcorning, the vitamin they cannot make and the country where keeping one alone is illegal. The hard ones want the wild ancestor, the Cusco painting with cuy on the table, the year the hairless mutation appeared and the Guinness record for age. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
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Q 01Guinea pigs were first domesticated around 5000 BC, as food, in which part of the world?
The Andes of South America
Regionally they are called cuy, from the Quechua quwi, and Peruvians still eat an estimated 65 million a year.
Q 02Which of these is true of the animal's name?
South American rodent, not a pig
One theory is that they reached Europe via Guinea; another that 'guinea' was slang for anything foreign. The 'pig' half survives in the Latin porcellus, 'little pig'.
Q 03The guinea pig's scientific name is Cavia porcellus. What does porcellus mean in Latin?
Little pig
Cavia comes from the same Tupi-Guarani root that gives us 'cavy', the other common name for the animal.
Q 04Like humans, guinea pigs cannot make one essential nutrient and must get it from food. Which?
Vitamin C
That quirk is why two Norwegian doctors accidentally gave guinea pigs scurvy in 1907, an animal model that has been called the most important piece of vitamin C research.
Q 05What disease appeared when Holst and Frølich fed guinea pigs a 1907 grain diet meant to cause beriberi?
Scurvy
Until then scurvy had been thought an exclusively human disease; they could cure it with fresh foods, years before the word 'vitamin' existed.
Q 06How long do pet guinea pigs typically live?
Four to five years
Some reach eight; the Guinness record holder, as of 2006, lived to 14 years, 10 months and 2 weeks.
Q 07According to Guinness World Records (as of 2006), how old was the longest-lived guinea pig?
Nearly 15 years
Fourteen years, ten months and two weeks, roughly three times the average pet's span.
Q 08What is the loud whistle-like noise a guinea pig makes, usually when it hears the fridge open, called?
A wheek
The word is onomatopoeic; the animals also purr when content, rumble when courting and chatter their teeth as a warning.
Q 09What is it called when a happily excited guinea pig hops repeatedly in the air?
Popcorning
Rabbits do a similar thing called binkying; young guinea pigs popcorn the most.
Q 10In which country is it illegal to keep a single guinea pig without a companion?
Switzerland
Guinea pigs thrive in groups of two or more; the same Swiss animal-welfare law also covers other social species.
Q 11Which English monarch is named as a royal who kept guinea pigs as pets in the 1500s?
Elizabeth I
Spanish, Dutch and English traders brought the animals back from South America and they were an instant hit with the upper classes.
Q 12How long is a guinea pig's gestation period?
About 9-10 weeks
Fifty-nine to seventy-two days, unusually long for a rodent, which is why pups are born with fur, teeth, claws and open eyes and can run within hours.
Q 13Newborn guinea pigs are described as 'precocial'. What does that mean?
Born well-developed, with fur and open eyes
Q 21Which city's cathedral has a Last Supper painting showing Christ and the disciples dining on guinea pig?
Cusco
Marcos Zapata's 18th-century canvas swapped in local dishes; cuy still features at Andean festivals and family celebrations.
Q 22In traditional Andean folk medicine, how are guinea pigs used by healers?
Rubbed on a sick person's body to diagnose illness
The animal is seen as a supernatural medium; the practice survives alongside modern medicine in parts of Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.
Q 23The guinea pig breed with a coat full of rosettes, or cowlicks, is called what?
Abyssinian
They arrive with hair, teeth and claws and start nibbling solid food within days; hamsters and mice, by contrast, are born naked and blind.
Q 14What is the correct term for a baby guinea pig?
Pup
Adults keep the porcine words: males are boars and females sows, but the young break the pattern.
Q 15What is a male guinea pig called?
A boar
Females are sows; in the wild a herd is typically several sows, one boar and their pups.
Q 16Why do guinea pigs constantly gnaw on wood and other hard materials?
Their front teeth grow continuously
They have four front teeth plus small back teeth; overgrown incisors are one of the commonest reasons a cavy ends up at the vet.
Q 17To extract nutrients from fibre, guinea pigs ferment it in the caecum and then do what?
Expel it as soft pellets and eat them again
The special droppings are called cecotropes; rabbits do the same, and it is perfectly normal, if unglamorous.
Q 18What should make up the bulk of a pet guinea pig's diet?
Fresh grass hay such as timothy
Pellets are usually timothy-based too, plus fresh vegetables for the vitamin C they cannot make themselves.
Q 19How much does an adult guinea pig typically weigh?
700-1,200 g
That is roughly the weight of a large grapefruit to a small pineapple; boars run heavier than sows.
Q 20Roughly how many guinea pigs are eaten in Peru each year?
About 65 million
Cuy is usually roasted or fried whole; a famous Last Supper painting in Cusco cathedral shows the disciples dining on one.
Despite the name it has nothing to do with Ethiopia; the Peruvian and Sheltie are the long, straight-haired breeds.
Q 24The 'skinny pig' is a guinea pig strain that is what?
Almost hairless
It descends from a spontaneous mutation spotted in a lab colony in Montreal in 1978 and keeps hair only on its muzzle, feet and legs.
Q 25The skinny pig's hairless mutation was first identified in 1978 in a lab colony in which city?
Montreal
It turned up among Hartley lab guinea pigs at the Armand Frappier Institute and was later crossed with haired breeds to make a healthier pet strain.
Q 26Guinea pigs belong to the rodent family Caviidae. Which giant relative shares that family?
Capybara
The capybara is the largest living rodent, weighing 35 to 66 kg; the family also includes the long-legged maras and the wild cavies.
Q 27Genetic studies suggest the domestic guinea pig's most likely wild ancestor is which species?
Cavia tschudii
The montane guinea pig of Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina; the domestic form no longer exists in the wild.
Q 28Guinea pigs have a wide field of vision of roughly how many degrees?
340°
Their eyes sit high on the sides of the head, as befits a prey animal; distance and colour vision are poorer than ours.
Q 29As prey animals, what survival instinct makes guinea pigs tricky patients for vets?
They mask pain and signs of illness
By the time a cavy looks ill it is often very ill, so owners are told to weigh them weekly.
Q 30How good are guinea pigs at climbing?
Poor; most can only hop small obstacles
That is why low-sided pens work as enclosures, and why a ramp to a second level needs to be gentle.