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50 free Pig trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
41 free Pig trivia questions with answers. Pigs are the most underrated animal in trivia. They were domesticated twice, on opposite sides of Asia; they cannot sweat their way out of a hot day; and they have carried more of children's literature on their backs than any other farm animal. This quiz covers all of it. The first half is the real animal: teeth, tusks, snouts, wallowing, wild boar society, breeds, and where the world's pork actually comes from. The second half is the cultural pig, from the 1933 Disney short that named the three little pigs to the barn spider who saved one from the smokehouse, the Australian farm where Babe was shot, and the Muppet with the karate chop. Questions run from easy warm-ups a child can take to expert-level detail, and each one was written against an encyclopaedic or primary source with the sentence that establishes the answer attached. Good for a farm-themed quiz night, a classroom, or anyone who wants to win an argument about whether pigs sweat.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the scientific name of the domestic pig?
Sus domesticus
The domestic pig is Sus domesticus; many authorities instead classify it as Sus scrofa domesticus, a subspecies of the Eurasian wild boar from which every breed descends.
Q 02Domestication happened independently twice in the Neolithic: in China and where else?
The Near East
Pigs were domesticated separately in China and the Near East about 9,000 years ago; herds that later reached Europe interbred heavily with local wild boar yet kept their domesticated traits.
Q 03How many teeth does an adult pig have?
44
An adult pig has 44 teeth: the rear molars crush food, and in males the canines keep growing into tusks that sharpen against each other.
Q 04What strengthens a pig's snout, letting it dig through hard soil?
A special prenasal bone
A special prenasal bone, the os rostrale, stiffens the snout for rooting; the snout is also an acute sense organ that locates food buried well out of sight.
Q 05Why do pigs wallow in mud on hot days?
To cool down by evaporation
Wallowing cools pigs down by evaporation: their sweat glands are limited to the snout and they pant poorly, so drying mud does the work skin cannot.
Q 06Which breed is unusual for having a woolly coat?
Mangalitsa
The Mangalitsa, a Hungarian lard breed, grows a thick curly fleece-like coat; most pigs carry only sparse bristles.
Q 07How many hoofed toes does a pig have on each foot?
Four
Each foot has four hoofed toes: the two big central toes carry the weight and the outer pair only touch down when the ground is soft.
Q 08Which country is the world's largest producer of pork?
China
China is the world's largest pork producer, ahead of the European Union and the United States; it raises roughly half of the world's pigs.
Q 09Roughly how many pigs are raised worldwide each year?
1.5 billion
Roughly 1.5 billion pigs are raised and slaughtered worldwide each year, yielding some 120 million tonnes of pork.
Q 10Which meat does pork trail as the world's most commonly eaten?
Poultry
Poultry overtook pork as the world's most-eaten meat in the late 2010s, pushing pork into second place ahead of beef.
Q 11What is the two-part scientific name of the wild boar, ancestor of the domestic pig?
Sus scrofa
Sus scrofa, the Eurasian wild boar, was named by Linnaeus in 1758 and is the ancestor of every domestic pig breed.
Q 12In a wild boar's two-part scientific name, what does the second word mean in Latin?
Sow
Scrofa is Latin for a breeding sow; the English word sow comes from Old English sugu and is related to Latin sus and Ancient Greek hus.
Q 13Across most of its Eurasian range, which predator is the wild boar's main hunter?
The wolf
The wolf; in the Far East that role passes to the tiger, and on the Lesser Sunda Islands to the Komodo dragon.
Q 21In the fable of the three little pigs, which material defeats the wolf?
Bricks
Bricks: the third pig's brick house withstands the wolf's huffing; in older printed versions the wolf then comes down the chimney, lands in a pot of boiling water and is eaten.
Q 22The earliest published version of that tale, from 1853 Dartmoor, starred which creatures instead?
Three pixies and a fox
The 1853 Dartmoor version starred three pixies and a fox; the familiar pig version reached print through Joseph Jacobs's English Fairy Tales of 1890, which credited nursery-rhyme collector James Halliwell.
Q 23Walt Disney's 1933 Silly Symphony gave the trio names. Which one built in brick?
Practical Pig
Q 14How is wild boar society organised?
In matriarchal groups
Wild boar live in matriarchal groups called sounders, led by an old female; fully grown males live alone outside the breeding season, which is why a lone boar is the dangerous one to meet.
Q 15Which country banned truffle hunting with pigs in 1985 because their rooting damaged the fungus?
Italy
Italy banned truffle hunting with pigs in 1985 because their rooting damaged the fungus's underground mycelium; trained dogs, usually the Lagotto Romagnolo, replaced them.
Q 16Which breed became a short-lived American pet fad after arriving from Canada in the mid-1980s?
The pot-bellied pig
The pot-bellied pig, imported from Vietnam to Canada in 1985, became a US pet craze; many were not purebred, and buyers expecting a lapdog-sized animal watched it grow to considerable size.
Q 17Which position does the Pig hold in the twelve-animal cycle of the Chinese zodiac?
Twelfth
The Pig is twelfth and last in the cycle; in the Great Race legend it arrived behind the Dog after stopping to eat and nap. Pig years include 1995, 2007 and 2019.
Q 18Five versions of the Chinese zodiac Pig exist, one named for each of what?
The Chinese elements
The Chinese elements, Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth; they correspond to the Heavenly Stems, which is why the same animal year feels different every sixty years.
Q 19In which country were coin-holding pig figures revered as good luck, popularizing the piggy bank?
Germany
Germany, where the pig is a traditional good-luck symbol (Glücksschwein); its oldest surviving piggy bank, from 13th-century Thuringia, turned up during construction work.
Q 20The earliest known pig-shaped money boxes, made in the Majapahit era, come from which island?
Java
Java: terracotta boar-shaped money boxes of the Majapahit era (13th–15th centuries) are the earliest known piggy banks; the Javanese word celengan comes from celeng, wild boar.
The cartoon softened the ending: the wolf merely burns himself and runs off, rather than being boiled and eaten.
Q 24Who wrote Charlotte's Web, published in 1952?
E. B. White
E. B. White; Garth Williams illustrated it, and the book appeared through Harper & Brothers on 15 October that year.
Q 25What kind of creature is Charlotte in that story?
A barn spider
Charlotte A. Cavatica is a barn spider (Araneus cavaticus) whose written messages persuade the farmer to spare Wilbur from slaughter.
Q 26Which two words appear first in that famous web?
Some Pig
'Some Pig' is the first message; Terrific, Radiant and Humble follow, each buying the runt another few weeks of life.
Q 27Which of Fern's relatives buys Wilbur and keeps him in the barn where he meets Charlotte?
Homer Zuckerman
Homer Zuckerman, Fern's uncle, buys Wilbur for six dollars and keeps him in his barn, where Charlotte's web messages later make the pig famous.
Q 28The 1995 film Babe was adapted from which novel?
The Sheep-Pig
Dick King-Smith published it in 1983; the screen version mixed real animals with animatronic puppets.
Q 29In which country was Babe filmed?
Australia
Australia: the farm scenes were shot at Robertson, New South Wales, in 1994, a year before release.
Q 30How many Academy Award nominations did Babe collect?
Seven
Babe earned seven nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won for Visual Effects, unusual company for a talking-animal comedy.