Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Zebra trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This zebra trivia quiz covers the three living species (plains, mountain and Grévy's), what colour a zebra actually is underneath, why the best evidence says stripes are for keeping biting flies off, how harems and bachelor herds work, how a zebra escapes a lion it cannot outrun, and the 500 km plains-zebra migration between Namibia and Botswana. It also covers zebras and people: the Greeks' 'horse tiger', the Portuguese origin of the word, Baibars' and Jahangir's diplomatic zebras, Queen Charlotte's ill-tempered wedding present, the French president who got a species named after him, Walter Rothschild's zebra carriage, the extinct quagga and the Quagga Project, the world's first zebra crossing in Slough, and Marty from Madagascar. Conservation questions cover the IUCN status of each species. Every question was verified against a primary reference (mainly the Wikipedia articles on zebras, the quagga and the zebra crossing) and carries a citation. Try our horse and Africa quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many living zebra species are there?
Three
Grévy's, plains and mountain zebra; the extinct quagga was a type of plains zebra.
Q 02Zebras share the genus Equus with which two other groups?
Horses and asses
The three groups are the only living members of the family Equidae.
Q 03What colour is a zebra's skin under its coat?
Black
The coat looks white with black stripes because unstriped areas like the belly are white, but the skin itself is black.
Q 04Which hypothesis for zebra stripes has the most evidence behind it?
They deter biting flies
Flies avoid landing on striped surfaces; horses dressed in zebra-print coats got the same protection.
Q 05What colour are zebra foals' stripes at birth?
Brown and white
The brown darkens with age; albino zebras from Mount Kenya keep blonde stripes for life.
Q 06What did the Greeks and Romans call the zebra?
Hippotigris
The English word came later via Portuguese 'zebro', a name first used for a mysterious wild equine of medieval Iberia.
Q 07The word 'zebra' probably descends from which Latin term meaning 'wild horse'?
Equiferus
It entered Portuguese as 'ezebro' and was recorded for the African animal by Filippo Pigafetta in 1591.
Q 08A 2013 study found the plains zebra is most closely related to which other species?
Grévy's
The mountain zebra split off around 1.6 million years ago; plains and Grévy's diverged 1.4 million years ago.
Q 09On which continent did the genus Equus originate?
North America
A 700,000-year-old horse bone from Canada helped date the equine common ancestor to about 4 million years ago.
Q 10What is a cross between a zebra and a horse called?
A zorse
A zonkey has a donkey parent and a zoni a pony; zebroids are often born sterile and dwarfed.
Q 11Unlike other living equines, zebras have which physical oddity?
Front legs longer than back legs
Like asses, they have chestnuts only on the front legs, unlike horses.
Q 12What did Charles Darwin write in 1871 about a female zebra and a male ass?
She refused him until he was painted with stripes
He was making a case for stripes as a social signal, a hypothesis that later evidence has not supported.
Q 13A 2018 experiment tested the thermoregulation hypothesis by dressing what in zebra hides?
Water-filled metal barrels
Q 21How do male Grévy's zebras mark their large territories?
With dung piles
The most dominant males hold territory around watering holes, which attracts mares with foals.
Q 22The plains zebra's contact call is usually written how?
'A-ha, a-ha, a-ha'
Grévy's zebra's call is described as 'something like a hippo's grunt combined with a donkey's wheeze'.
Q 23How long is a zebra's gestation?
Around a year
A single foal is usual, and it can run within an hour of birth.
The stripes had no effect on temperature, though a 2019 study found air swirls forming where warm black stripes meet white ones.
Q 14Plains zebras make the longest land migration of any African mammal, roughly how far?
500 km
The route runs between Namibia and Botswana; they seem to remember where foraging was best.
Q 15How long can a Grévy's zebra survive without water?
Almost a week
They will still drink daily if they can, and hold water better than cattle.
Q 16What is the plains zebra's role as a 'pioneer grazer'?
It mows tall, poor grass, exposing rich short grass for wildebeest
Zebras have a simpler gut than ruminants but can live on lower-quality vegetation.
Q 17Which predator hunts zebras most?
Lions
A zebra tops out at about 50 km/h against a lion's 74, so it escapes by turning sideways rather than by speed.
Q 18How does a zebra escape a faster lion?
By sideways turning when the cat is close
One study clocked zebras at 50 km/h and lions at 74 km/h; kicking and biting are the last resort.
Q 19What is the stable family group of most zebra species called?
A harem
One stallion, several mares and their foals; the group stays stable even if the stallion is displaced.
Q 20When a plains zebra family travels, who leads?
The top-ranking mare and her foals
The stallion trails at the back; the highest-ranking females are those who have been in the group longest.
Q 24A newborn zebra will follow anything that moves. What do mothers do about it?
Keep other mares away until it learns her stripes and smell
Foals begin to graze at a few weeks but may nurse for eight to thirteen months.
Q 25In Grévy's zebras, where do young stay when their mothers go to drink?
In 'kindergartens' minded by the local male
A stallion may protect a foal that is not his own to keep its mother in his territory.
Q 26A Maasai proverb compares a man lacking culture to what?
A zebra without stripes
The San people, meanwhile, linked zebra stripes with water, rain and lightning.
Q 27The plains zebra is the national animal of which country?
Botswana
For the Shona of Zimbabwe it is a totem animal, and the girls' name Madhuve means 'woman of the zebra totem'.
Q 28Which comic-book heroine is depicted riding a zebra?
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
Explorer Osa Johnson was also photographed riding one.
Q 29In which film is a captive zebra, shunned by racehorses, ridden by a rebellious girl?
Racing Stripes
Khumba and Zou are animated zebras; Marty of Madagascar is the most famous of all.
Q 30Carel Weight's painting of a zebra escaping a zoo during an air raid was based on a real incident at which zoo?
London Zoo
The four-panel work looks like a comic strip.