Monkeys
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148 free Monkeys trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
20 free Monkeys trivia questions with answers. Monkeys trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is Monkey trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
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Q 01Which group of monkeys lives mainly in Central and South America and often has prehensile tails?
New World Monkeys
New World Monkeys live in the Americas, and many species, like spider and howler monkeys, have prehensile tails that can grasp objects and support their weight. Old World Monkeys of Africa and Asia do not.
Q 02Which primates have an enlarged hyoid bone that acts as a resonating chamber for their calls?
Howler
Howler males face a trade-off: the species with the biggest hyoids and deepest roars have the smallest testes, so the loudest males invest in sounding big rather than in sperm.
Q 03What is the heaviest monkey species, known for red and blue facial ridges?
Mandrill
The Mandrill is the largest monkey, and a male's colours advertise his rank: dominant males wear the most vivid reds and blues and father most of the young.
Q 04Which of these continents has no native monkey species?
Australia
Australia has no native monkeys: its marsupials, kangaroos and possums among them, fill many of the niches that placental mammals hold on other continents.
Q 05Which of these Old World monkeys is endemic to the island of Borneo?
Proboscis Monkey
The Proboscis Monkey lives only on Borneo; the male's huge nose works as a resonator for his honks, and females are thought to prefer the loudest callers.
Q 06Which New World monkeys, the only neotropical primates that frequently use tools in the wild, crack open nuts with stones?
Capuchin Monkeys
Capuchin monkeys position a nut on a flat anvil stone and strike it with a heavier hammer stone, choosing hammers of specific weights for different foods.
Q 07Old World Monkeys typically have nostrils that face in which direction?
Downward
Downward: Old World monkeys share narrow noses and down-pointing nostrils with apes and humans, whereas American monkeys have flat noses with nostrils opening sideways.
Q 08Which dietary label fits most monkey species?
Omnivores
Omnivores: most monkeys mix fruit, leaves and seeds with insects and eggs, and baboons go further, catching rodents, birds and even young gazelles.
Q 09On which continent do wild monkeys live in just one place, a rocky British territory?
Europe
Europe's only wild monkeys are the few hundred Barbary macaques of Gibraltar, probably brought over from North Africa centuries ago; their numbers are rising while their African cousins decline.
Q 10In the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, the flying monkeys serve which character?
The Wicked Witch of the West
The Wicked Witch of the West commands them on screen, but in L. Frank Baum's book the Winged Monkeys belong to no one: they must obey whoever wears the Golden Cap, three times each.
Q 11Which Indiana Jones film features a spy monkey that dies after eating a poisoned date?
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark: the capuchin spies on Indy and Marion in Cairo for the villains, then saves his life by accident when it eats a poisoned date meant for him.
Q 12What is the common collective noun for a group of monkeys?
A Troop
A Troop is the usual collective noun for monkeys; mandrill 'hordes' in Gabon's Lopé National Park have been counted at over 800 animals, among the largest primate groups known.
Q 13The pygmy marmoset, the world's smallest monkey, lives in the rainforest of which river basin?
Amazon
The Amazon basin's western forests are home to the pygmy marmoset, which weighs only about 100 grams and keeps in touch with its family through an intricate system of trilled calls.
Q 21Among South America's monkeys, the mustachioed emperor tamarin is allegedly named after which ruler?
Wilhelm II
Wilhelm II, Germany's last Kaiser, is said to be the namesake, hence the scientific name imperator; the tamarin's own white moustache droops right past its shoulders.
Q 22The golden lion tamarin's entire wild range lies within which Brazilian state?
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro state holds every wild golden lion tamarin; down to about 200 animals by the 1970s, the species had climbed back to some 4,800 by a 2023 census, helped by releases of zoo-bred monkeys.
Q 23Dusky leaf monkeys are dark-furred as adults, but their babies are born with fur of what color?
Bright orange
Q 14What do macaques and baboons use their internal cheek pouches for?
Storing food temporarily
Storing food temporarily: cheek pouches let these monkeys cram in food quickly while the picking is good, then carry it away to eat at leisure.
Q 15Which word best describes the lifestyle of most New World monkeys?
Arboreal
Arboreal: almost all New World monkeys live in the trees, and the monkeys that have taken to life on the ground, such as baboons, are all Old World species.
Q 16Which monkey species is famous for soaking in hot springs in winter, a habit begun in the 1960s?
Japanese macaque
Japanese macaques at Jigokudani began soaking in the early 1960s, and within months the whole group had joined in; winter bathing is linked to lower stress levels.
Q 17The gelada, a monkey with a bare red 'bleeding heart' chest patch, lives only in which country's highlands?
Ethiopia
Ethiopia's highlands hold every wild gelada, the last surviving species of a genus that once ranged across Africa and as far as Spain and India.
Q 18Which monkey species is known for its strong affinity for water and is considered a good swimmer?
Rhesus Macaque
Rhesus macaques swim readily: in the 1930s a Florida tour operator released some on an island in the Silver River, expecting them to stay put, and they simply swam ashore.
Q 19Digs in Brazil show capuchin monkeys have used stone tools to crack nuts for roughly how long?
About 3,000 years
About 3,000 years: stone hammers dug up in Serra da Capivara National Park go back that far, and their changing sizes show the monkeys switched to different foods over time.
Q 20In snowy winters, the golden snub-nosed monkey of China survives mainly on which unusual food?
Lichens
Lichens cling to the trees all winter, when leaves and fruit are gone, so the monkeys of China's snowy mountain forests live mainly on them from November to April.
Bright orange newborns stand out against their dark-furred parents, but the color fades within months; infants are also taken from the wild and sold as pets.
Q 24The critically endangered cotton-top tamarin is found in the wild only in which country?
Colombia
Colombia is the cotton-top tamarin's only home, in forest fragments of the country's northwest; tens of thousands were exported for biomedical research before CITES protection in 1976, and only a few thousand remain wild.
Q 25Spider monkeys, which hang by their tails with arms longer than their legs, lack what?
Thumbs
Thumbs are absent or reduced to a nub in spider monkeys, leaving a hook-like hand for swinging; dangling by the prehensile tail with limbs loose gives them their spidery look.
Q 26Miss Baker, who rode an Army missile into space in 1959 and lived until 1984, was what kind of monkey?
Squirrel monkey
Squirrel monkey Miss Baker lived out her days at a space museum in Alabama, where schoolchildren sent her 100 to 150 letters a day and visitors leave bananas on her grave.
Q 27Able, the rhesus who flew with Miss Baker in 1959, died four days later during what?
Electrode-removal surgery
Electrode-removal surgery should have been routine, but Able's heart stopped under the anaesthetic; her body was preserved and went to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
Q 28Albert II, the first monkey in space in 1949, rode which type of rocket?
V-2
Albert II rode a captured German V-2 launched from White Sands on 14 June 1949, reaching about 83 miles, but died on impact when the capsule's parachute failed.
Q 29Barbary macaques, unusually for monkeys, essentially lack what?
A tail
A tail: Barbary macaques have only a vestigial stub, which is why they were long miscalled 'Barbary apes'; they are the sole macaque species living outside Asia.
Q 30Which British prime minister ordered Gibraltar's dwindling macaque colony restocked, mindful of a legend about British rule?
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill, told during the Second World War that only seven monkeys were left, had more brought over from Morocco and Algeria; legend says Britain will lose the Rock if they ever die out.