Kangaroo Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
56 free Kangaroo trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
59 free Kangaroo trivia questions with answers. Kangaroos are the animal everyone can draw and almost nobody really knows. This quiz goes past the postcard: how a joey the size of a lima bean crawls into the pouch, why a mother can put an embryo on pause, how the tail works as a third leg, and why kangaroos burp almost no methane while cattle do. It covers all four big species (red, eastern grey, western grey and antilopine), the tree-kangaroos of New Guinea, and the extinct giants that walked instead of hopped. Then it turns to the kangaroo as a symbol: the coat of arms, the Qantas tail, the boxing kangaroo flag on Australia II, Skippy, Kangaroo Jack, Captain Kangaroo and Roo from Winnie-the-Pooh. Questions run from easy ones for kids to a few that will stump a zoologist. Every answer has been checked against a primary or encyclopaedic source, so the facts are safe to repeat.
30 of 56 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A debunked legend says 'kangaroo' was an Aboriginal reply meaning what?
I don't understand
I don't understand, or in some tellings 'I don't know', is the legend; in fact gangurru was the Guugu Yimithirr name for a large kangaroo, as John Haviland confirmed in 1972 by recording it again from its speakers.
Q 02Kangaroos sometimes do what with grass they have already swallowed?
Chew it again
Chew it again: like cattle chewing the cud, kangaroos can bring swallowed grass back up, re-chew it and swallow it once more to finish digesting it.
Q 03The red kangaroo mainly lives in which part of Australia?
The dry inland plains
The dry inland plains are its stronghold: able to live on very little water, it ranges across the arid centre but is missing from the wetter, more fertile east coast and the northern rainforests.
Q 04Which structures in a kangaroo's hind legs store energy on landing and release it into the next hop?
Tendons
Tendons stretch as the animal lands and then recoil like springs, supplying most of the energy for the following hop, which is why a kangaroo can cruise for long distances at little cost.
Q 05At birth, a kangaroo joey is about the size of what?
A lima bean
A lima bean is about the size of the blind, hairless newborn, which hauls itself through its mother's fur to the pouch using its forelimbs, the only part of it developed enough to work.
Q 06Roughly how long is a kangaroo pregnant before her tiny, undeveloped joey is born?
About 5 weeks
About 5 weeks is all the womb provides; the joey then spends months in the pouch, fastened to a teat, doing the growing that most mammals finish before birth.
Q 07A kangaroo mother suckling a newborn and an older joey together produces what?
Two different milks
Two different milks come from separate teats, each matched to its joey's stage of growth, so a newborn in the pouch and an older youngster can both be fed at once.
Q 08What is a female kangaroo's ability to put a pregnancy on hold until conditions improve called?
Embryonic diapause
Embryonic diapause keeps a week-old embryo dormant while an older joey occupies the pouch; once that joey starts to leave, or a drought breaks, development resumes.
Q 09Which of these is a traditional term for a male kangaroo?
Boomer
Boomer is one of several names for a male, along with buck, jack and old man, and it gave Australia's men's basketball team its nickname, the Boomers.
Q 10What is the usual collective noun for a group of kangaroos?
A mob
A mob has no fixed size: it swells or thins with the food on offer, and feeding in company gives the weaker animals some protection.
Q 11Which airline uses a bounding kangaroo as its logo?
Qantas
Qantas first painted the kangaroo on its aircraft in 1944 for the long-haul service it called the Kangaroo Route, which earned the airline its nickname, the Flying Kangaroo.
Q 12Until 1993, kangaroo meat could be sold in most of eastern Australia only as what?
Pet food
Pet food was the only legal market for it in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland until 1993; it is now sold in butchers and supermarkets and promoted as a healthy red meat.
Q 13When chased by a predator, kangaroos often flee into which terrain, where they are surprisingly capable?
Deep water: strong swimmers
Q 21The red kangaroo now sits in the genus Osphranter, which it shares with which of these relatives?
Wallaroos
Wallaroos share Osphranter with the red kangaroo: John Gould coined the genus, later zoologists folded it into a broader kangaroo genus, and it has since been restored.
Q 22Roughly how far can a big red kangaroo travel in a single flat-out leap?
About 9 m
About 9 m, on a par with the men's long jump world record of 8.95 m, is a bound kept for emergencies; a kangaroo travelling at its ordinary pace takes much shorter hops.
Q 23Male red kangaroos have red-brown fur, but the females are usually what colour?
Blue-grey
Blue-grey females are nicknamed blue flyers, being smaller and faster than the males, though in some areas the females are reddish too.
Deep water: strong swimmers, kangaroos often head for a river or dam when chased, and a big one pursued into the water may use its forepaws to hold the predator under.
Q 14Studies of kangaroos walking slowly on all fours found that the tail works as what?
A fifth leg
A fifth leg: the tail and the two short forelimbs take the animal's weight like a tripod while both hind feet swing forward together, a gait known as pentapedal walking.
Q 15Which naturalist on the Endeavour voyage first recorded the word 'kanguru' in his diary in July 1770?
Joseph Banks
Joseph Banks wrote down what he heard from Guugu Yimithirr speakers on the Endeavour River, where the damaged ship lay beached for repairs; their word gangurru named one kind of large kangaroo.
Q 16Who commanded HMS Endeavour in 1770, when its crew met kangaroos while repairing the ship in Queensland?
James Cook
James Cook had run the ship aground on the Great Barrier Reef, throwing her guns overboard to float her off; she then lay beached for almost seven weeks while the hull was repaired.
Q 17Kangaroos are most active during which part of the day?
Dusk to dawn
Dusk to dawn is when kangaroos move about and feed in the cool; they sit out the heat of the day resting in the shade.
Q 18Which extinct animal do palaeontologists consider a former major natural predator of kangaroos?
Thylacine
Thylacines, or Tasmanian tigers, disappeared from the mainland more than 3,000 years ago, possibly after the dingo arrived, which left the dingo as the kangaroo's chief wild predator.
Q 19Compared with cattle and sheep, kangaroos belch out far less of which digestive gas?
Methane
Methane is released in far smaller amounts than by cattle, one reason kangaroo meat is promoted as a greener choice, though a 2015 study confirmed that kangaroos do emit some every day.
Q 20What unusual thing happens to a kangaroo's molars as they wear down?
They shift forward and drop out
They shift forward and drop out at the front as fresh molars erupt behind them, so a very old kangaroo may have only its last two molars left to grind grass.
Q 24How do red kangaroos go for long periods without drinking?
Their kidneys reabsorb water from urine
Their kidneys reabsorb water from urine, concentrating it so that little is lost, and the juicy plants they eat supply most of the moisture they need.
Q 25Besides the dingo, which bird of prey is one of the kangaroo's few natural predators?
Wedge-tailed eagle
Wedge-tailed eagles mostly take joeys, but a pair hunting together can occasionally bring down a full-grown kangaroo.
Q 26Kangaroos, wallabies, tree-kangaroos, pademelons and the quokka all belong to which family?
Macropodidae
Macropodidae's big kangaroos have coped well with farming, but several of the family's smaller members have died out or become endangered, probably through predation by introduced foxes.
Q 27How is the extinct giant short-faced kangaroo Procoptodon thought to have moved?
Walking upright on two legs
Walking upright on two legs is what a 2014 study of its limb bones suggested; at up to 240 kg, Procoptodon was probably too heavy to hop like its living relatives.
Q 28The boxing kangaroo flag became famous in 1983 flying above Australia II during which sporting contest?
The America's Cup
The America's Cup had stayed with the New York Yacht Club for 132 years until Australia II won; a delighted Prime Minister Bob Hawke said any boss who sacked a worker for not turning up that day was a bum.
Q 29On the boxing kangaroo flag, what colour is the background behind the golden kangaroo?
Green
Green and gold are Australia's sporting colours, and the red-gloved kangaroo was the mascot of Alan Bond's Australia II campaign; Bond owned the image and licensed it for mass production.
Q 30The boxing kangaroo, made famous by a 1983 sporting win, is now the official mascot of Australia's team at which event?
The Olympic Games
The Olympic Games: the Australian Olympic Committee bought the image from Alan Bond, and for Athens in 2004 a friendlier, redrawn kangaroo took over as team mascot from the little-seen Willy.