Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Skeleton trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
48 free skeleton trivia questions with answers. How many bones are you carrying around right now? Where is the smallest one, and which one is not attached to anything else? This skeleton trivia quiz starts inside the human body, with the skull, spine, ribs, hands and feet, and the surprisingly busy business of bone marrow and remodelling. Then it heads outdoors. You will meet Lucy and Sue, the most famous fossil skeletons on Earth, the bone chandelier of Sedlec, six million Parisians underground, the head-first Olympic sport called skeleton, and the skull-faced stars of Halloween: Skeletor, Jack Skellington and Disney's dancing skeletons of 1929. The questions run from easy ones a curious ten-year-old can answer to expert-level anatomy. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, mostly the relevant Wikipedia article, and the citation is attached to each question, so you can argue with us if you think we are wrong.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many bones does a typical adult human skeleton have?
206
Newborns start with around 270 separate bones, many of which fuse during childhood. Bone mass keeps growing until about age 25 to 30.
Q 02Roughly how many bones is a human baby born with, before many of them fuse?
About 270
The skull alone has soft fontanelles that let it squeeze through the birth canal and then close. Fusion of the last growth plates finishes in the mid-twenties.
Q 03How many bones are in the axial skeleton (skull, spine and rib cage)?
80
The appendicular skeleton of limbs and girdles holds the other 126. Together they make up about 14% of total body weight.
Q 04Roughly what share of your total body weight is bone?
About 14%
Bone marrow, tucked inside those bones, adds another 5% or so on its own. Water and muscle make up most of the rest.
Q 05Which bone is the largest and thickest in the human body?
Femur
On average it accounts for 26.74% of a person's height, which is why forensic scientists can estimate stature from a single thigh bone. Its ball-shaped head sits in the pelvic socket called the acetabulum.
Q 06Which bone is the second largest in the human body?
Tibia
The shinbone is named after the tibia, an ancient Roman flute, because of its long tubular shape. It carries the body's weight at the knee while the thinner fibula runs beside it.
Q 07The smallest and lightest bone in the human body is found where?
In the middle ear
The stapes is only 2 to 3 mm long and is shaped like a stirrup, which is what its Latin name means. It is the third of the three tiny ossicles that pass sound vibrations to the inner ear.
Q 08Which horseshoe-shaped bone in the neck is the only one in the body not connected to any other bone?
Hyoid
It floats between the chin and the thyroid cartilage, held by muscles and ligaments, and braces the tongue and larynx for speech. In adult homicide cases a fractured one strongly indicates strangulation.
Q 09How many bones make up the human skull?
22
Eight cranial bones form the braincase and fourteen make up the face. They meet at immovable fibrous joints called sutures.
Q 10How many fontanelles, or 'soft spots', does a newborn's skull have?
Six
There is one at the front, one at the back and two on each side. They let the skull plates shift during birth and give the brain room to grow before closing.
Q 11What is the name of the large hole in the base of the skull through which the spinal cord passes?
Foramen magnum
It sits in the occipital bone. Its Latin name simply means 'great hole', and its position under the skull is one clue anthropologists use to tell upright walkers from four-legged animals.
Q 12Discounting the tiny ear ossicles, which is the only movable bone of the human skull?
Mandible
The lower jaw is also the largest and strongest bone of the face and holds the sixteen lower teeth. It hinges on the temporal bones at the temporomandibular joints.
Q 13How many vertebrae does a human spine normally have, counting the fused ones in the sacrum and tailbone?
33
Q 21How many bones does a human foot contain?
26
They meet at 33 joints and are worked by more than a hundred muscles, tendons and ligaments. Both feet together hold about a quarter of all the bones in the body.
Q 22What is the anatomical name for the heel bone, the largest bone in the foot?
Calcaneus
A layer of fat cushions it from below. Above it sits the talus, which links the foot to the tibia and fibula to form the ankle.
Q 23The kneecap is the largest example of which type of bone, one that forms inside a tendon?
Sesamoid
Babies are born with a kneecap of soft cartilage that only starts turning to bone at about age three and finishes around puberty.
The count is 7 cervical, 12 thoracic, 5 lumbar, 5 fused sacral and 4 coccygeal. Cartilage discs between the movable ones act as shock absorbers.
Q 14A giraffe's neck contains how many vertebrae, the same number as a human's?
Seven
With the exception of sloths and manatees, every mammal has seven neck bones; a giraffe's are simply enormously elongated. Sideways spinal curvature, scoliosis, affects about 0.5% of people.
Q 15The topmost vertebra, on which the skull rests, is named after which figure from Greek mythology?
Atlas
Just as the Titan held up the sky, the first cervical vertebra holds up the head. The second, the axis, provides the pivot that lets you shake your head 'no'.
Q 16How many pairs of ribs does a typical human have?
12
Men and women have the same number, despite the popular idea drawn from the Adam and Eve story. About 1 in 200 to 500 people have an extra cervical rib in the neck.
Q 17The lowest two pairs of ribs, which do not attach to the breastbone at all, are known as what?
Floating
The upper pairs are 'true' ribs joined directly to the sternum; pairs eight to twelve are 'false' ribs, and the last two of those hang free at the front.
Q 18The tailbone at the base of the spine takes its name from the Greek word for which bird?
Cuckoo
Seen from the side, the last few bones of the coccyx were thought to resemble a cuckoo's beak. It is made of three to five small vertebrae and is the remnant of a vestigial tail.
Q 19How many bones are in one human hand?
27
That is eight wrist bones, five in the palm and fourteen finger bones. Each finger has three phalanges, but the thumb only has two.
Q 20Which digit has only two phalanx bones instead of three?
Thumb
Every other finger has a proximal, middle and distal phalanx. The thumb's shorter chain gives it the range of motion needed to oppose the fingers.
Q 24Which bone is the most commonly broken in the human body?
Collarbone (clavicle)
Falling on an outstretched arm sends the force straight into it. Its Latin name, clavicula, means 'little key', because it rotates like a key when you lift your arm.
Q 25Hitting your 'funny bone' actually means striking what?
A nerve
The ulnar nerve is trapped between the skin and the end of the upper arm bone at the elbow, so a knock sends an electric jolt down to the fingers. The name is thought to be a pun on 'humerus' and 'humorous'.
Q 26What is the main mineral that makes bone hard?
Hydroxyapatite
It is a form of calcium phosphate. The rest of the bone matrix is 90 to 95% collagen fibres, which give bone its slight springiness.
Q 27Which cells break down old bone tissue, while osteoblasts build new bone?
Osteoclasts
Thanks to this constant remodelling, about 10% of an adult's skeletal mass is replaced every year. When breakdown outpaces building, the result is osteoporosis.
Q 28Dense cortical (compact) bone makes up roughly what proportion of the adult skeleton's mass?
80%
The remaining 20% is spongy trabecular bone, which nonetheless has nearly ten times the surface area, making it the site of most remodelling.
Q 29Roughly how many blood cells does human bone marrow produce every day?
500 billion
Red marrow does the work; yellow marrow is mostly fat. Marrow makes up about 5% of body mass, around 3.7 kg in a 73 kg adult.
Q 30What is the hardest substance in the human body, which is not actually bone?
Tooth enamel
Enamel is about 96% mineral, a higher proportion than any bone. Unlike bone, it cannot remodel itself once it is damaged.