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50 free Triassic trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Triassic trivia for dinosaur kids who grew up, geology students, and anyone who has stood among the petrified logs of Arizona or the moon-valley badlands of Argentina. The Triassic is the odd one out of the Mesozoic: it began in the wreckage of the worst extinction in Earth's history and ended with another, and for most of its 50 million years the dinosaurs were bit players while crocodile-line reptiles and tusked, beaked dicynodonts ran the show. The quiz covers how the period got its name from three German rock layers, the supercontinent Pangaea and its megamonsoons, the coal gap and the hottest climate of the Phanerozoic, then the animals: Lystrosaurus that made up 95 percent of some faunas, the giraffe-necked Tanystropheus, the first turtles, frogs, mammals, pterosaurs and ichthyosaurs, and the earliest dinosaurs from Ischigualasto, Ghost Ranch and Germany. It closes with the Central Atlantic volcanoes, the Manicouagan crater and the extinction that finally handed the world to the dinosaurs. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our dinosaurs, Jurassic, fossils and geology quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Triassic is the first period of which geological era?
Mesozoic
It is also the shortest of the era's three periods, at about 50 million years.
Q 02Which period came immediately after the Triassic?
Jurassic
The boundary between them is marked by a mass extinction that cleared the way for the dinosaurs.
Q 03Roughly how many million years did the Triassic last?
50
It ran from about 252 to 201 million years ago.
Q 04The name Triassic refers to a 'triad' of what?
German rock layers
The three are the Buntsandstein, the Muschelkalk and the Keuper.
Q 05Who named the Triassic in 1834?
Friedrich Alberti
He was a salt-mining inspector from Rottweil who worked out that three German rock layers formed one system.
Q 06The Muschelkalk, the middle of the three German Triassic layers, is what kind of rock?
Shell-bearing limestone
The lower Buntsandstein is a colourful sandstone and the upper Keuper a coloured clay.
Q 07Which supercontinent dominated the globe during the Triassic?
Pangaea
It only began to split into Laurasia and Gondwana at the very end of the period.
Q 08What was the Triassic climate like across most of the supercontinent's interior?
Hot and dry
Deserts covered much of the continent, and there is no evidence of ice at either pole.
Q 09Which mass extinction opened the Triassic?
The end-Permian event
Nicknamed the Great Dying, it wiped out about 81 percent of marine species.
Q 10The Permian-Triassic extinction is colloquially known by what name?
The Great Dying
It is the biggest of the 'Big Five' extinctions, and the only one to badly hit insects.
Q 11Which volcanic province is blamed for the extinction that opened the Triassic?
The Siberian Traps
Its eruptions belched sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide, leaving oceans oxygen-starved.
Q 12Which was the hottest portion of the entire Phanerozoic Eon?
The Early Triassic
It followed straight after the greenhouse gases discharged by the Siberian Traps.
Q 13No deposits of which resource are known from the start of the Triassic, a 'gap' to geologists?
Coal
Explanations range from acid rain to the extinction of every peat-swamp plant.
Q 21After the extinction, what share of land vertebrates in one South African zone were Lystrosaurus?
95%
Fossils have turned up in Antarctica, India, China, Russia and South Africa.
Q 22Which group of cynodont therapsids gave rise to the first mammals during the Carnian?
Advanced cynodonts
The 'Triassic Takeover' by archosaurs may have pushed early mammals into a small, nocturnal, furry lifestyle.
Q 23Tanystropheus is famous for what extreme feature?
A neck longer than its body
Its 13 neck vertebrae were once mistaken for the wing bones of a pterosaur.
Q 14The strong contrast between the supercontinent and the global ocean triggered what weather phenomenon?
Megamonsoons
The supercontinent's size gave it very hot summers and cool winters, with the ocean unable to moderate them.
Q 15Which humid interval, around 234 million years ago, interrupted the dry Triassic?
The Carnian Pluvial Event
It was set off by the eruption of the Wrangellia Large Igneous Province.
Q 16Early Triassic archosaurs split into a crocodile line and a bird line; what is the bird line called?
Avemetatarsalia
The bird line was a minor player at first but produced the earliest pterosaurs and dinosaurs in the Late Triassic.
Q 17Which branch of archosaurs, ancestors of crocodilians, dominated Triassic ecosystems?
Pseudosuchians
They included armoured herbivorous aetosaurs and big 'rauisuchian' carnivores.
Q 18Which Triassic archosaurs were the first vertebrates to fly?
Pterosaurs
Early long-tailed forms appeared in the Norian and quickly spread worldwide.
Q 19In which Triassic epoch did the dinosaurs first appear?
Late
They evolved in the Carnian age, and most were small predators.
Q 20Lystrosaurus, the most common land vertebrate of the Early Triassic, was what kind of animal?
A dicynodont therapsid
It had just two tusk-like teeth and a horny beak, and probably dug burrows.
Q 24Where is Monte San Giorgio, the Middle Triassic fossil lagoon rich in marine reptiles?
The Italy-Switzerland border
Its anoxic bottom water kept scavengers away, much like the Jurassic Solnhofen limestone.
Q 25Which highly successful marine reptiles appeared in Early Triassic seas?
Ichthyopterygians
The ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs were the only marine reptiles to survive the end of the period.
Q 26The giant Triassic ichthyosaur Shonisaurus is the state fossil of which US state?
Nevada
At least 37 specimens have come from the Luning Formation, viewable at Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park.
Q 27The earliest turtles, such as Proganochelys, appeared during which age of the Late Triassic?
Norian
The Norian also saw the first long-tailed pterosaurs spread worldwide.
Q 28The largest Triassic amphibians, such as Mastodonsaurus, reached what length?
4 to 6 metres
These temnospondyls were aquatic survivors of the end-Permian extinction.
Q 29Which modern amphibian group had its progenitors present by the Early Triassic?
Frogs
The lissamphibians only became common in the Jurassic once the temnospondyls faded.
Q 30Which shark-like cartilaginous fish dominated Triassic fresh and marine waters?
Hybodonts
Coelacanths, meanwhile, hit their highest post-Devonian diversity in the Early Triassic.