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60 free Zoo Animals Trivia for Kids trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This zoo animals for kids trivia quiz walks the whole zoo: the big cats, elephants, giraffes and zebras on the savannah, gorillas, chimps and orangutans in the ape house, giant pandas and red pandas, kangaroos and koalas, penguins and polar bears, meerkats, flamingos, peacocks and toucans, crocodiles, tortoises, snakes and chameleons, sea otters and sea lions, camels, llamas, sloths, capybaras and lemurs. There are a few questions about zoos themselves too, from the oldest scientific zoo in London to the San Diego Zoo's cage-free exhibits. It is written for kids roughly 6 to 12, for the car ride to the zoo, a classroom animal unit or a rainy-day family quiz. Most questions are easy or medium and every one teaches a fact worth repeating at the enclosure. For a tougher run, try our hard nature trivia; our animal trivia for kids page has the wider mix. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia article on the animal or zoo, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A group of lions is called what?
A pride
A pride is mostly related females and cubs, with just one or a few adult males.
Q 02Outside Africa, wild lions live in only one other country. Which?
India
They live in the Gir Forest, and long ago lions roamed from Europe all the way to India.
Q 03Which two kinds of tiger are the largest?
Bengal and Siberian
Tigers live mostly alone and defend their own patch of forest.
Q 04What is special about every zebra's stripes?
They are unique to each animal
Like fingerprints, no two zebras have the same pattern.
Q 05Which animals are the hippo's closest living relatives?
Whales and dolphins
They split apart about 55 million years ago, even though hippos look like giant pigs.
Q 06When do hippos come out of the water to eat grass?
At dusk
They spend the hot day cooling off in water or mud.
Q 07A rhino's horn is made of the same stuff as what?
Hair and fingernails
It is keratin, and there are five kinds of rhino: two in Africa and three in Asia.
Q 08What is the leader of a gorilla troop called?
A silverback
Gorillas are the largest primates alive, with arm spans up to 2.6 metres.
Q 09Chimpanzees use sticks and stones as tools to get which food, among others?
Termites and honey
Nearly every chimp group ever studied uses tools, and their DNA is almost 99% the same as ours.
Q 10Wild orangutans live on which two islands?
Borneo and Sumatra
Their name comes from Malay words meaning person of the forest.
Q 11What do giant pandas eat almost all day long?
Bamboo
They have a false thumb on each front paw that helps them grip the stalks.
Q 12Giant pandas live in the wild in only one country. Which?
China
A 2015 survey counted about 1,864 wild pandas.
Q 13Red pandas are not bears. Which animals are they most closely related to?
Raccoons and weasels
They live in the eastern Himalayas and were named panda first, in 1825, before the giant panda.
Q 14Which is the biggest species in the kangaroo family?
Q 21Why are flamingos pink?
Colours in the food they eat
Carotenoids in their plankton diet do it; a pale flamingo is usually a hungry one.
Q 22What is a group of flamingos called?
A flamboyance
They usually stand on one leg, possibly to keep warm in cold water.
Q 23What is a female peacock called?
A peahen
Only the males have the huge fan of feathers, and the blue peafowl comes from India.
Q 24Crocodiles and alligators look alike. How can you tell them apart when their mouths are shut?
The red
The word macropod means large foot, and the smallest members of the family are called wallabies.
Q 15Koalas sleep for up to how many hours a day?
Twenty
They eat mostly eucalyptus leaves, and they are marsupials, not bears.
Q 16Only one kind of penguin lives at the equator. Which one, named after its islands?
The Galápagos
All the rest live in the Southern Hemisphere, and none live wild at the North Pole.
Q 17Which is the largest kind of penguin, standing about 1.1 metres tall?
The emperor
Adults stand about 1.1 metres tall and weigh around 35 kg.
Q 18Who keeps a big Antarctic penguin's egg warm on his feet all winter?
The father
He balances it on his feet for over two months without eating, losing about 12 kg.
Q 19What colour is a polar bear's skin under its white fur?
Black
It is the biggest bear and the biggest meat-eater on land, and it mostly hunts seals.
Q 20Meerkats are a small kind of which animal?
Mongoose
They live in big burrows in southern Africa and take turns standing guard for predators.
The first one's teeth still show
Alligator jaws are wider on top, so their bottom teeth tuck away out of sight.
Q 25Harriet, a Galápagos tortoise kept in captivity, lived to be at least how old?
175
Wild ones live over 100 years and can weigh up to 417 kg, the biggest tortoises on Earth.
Q 26Ring-tailed lemurs live wild in only one place. Where?
Madagascar
They live in troops of up to 30, and the females are in charge.
Q 27Sea otters have the thickest fur of any animal. What do they use rocks for?
To open shellfish
That makes them one of the few mammals that use tools.
Q 28What is one easy way to tell a sea lion from a seal?
Sea lions have ear flaps
They can also walk on all four flippers, which true seals cannot do.
Q 29What is really stored inside a camel's hump?
Fat
The idea that it holds water is a myth; the fat is an energy reserve for long trips.
Q 30How many humps does a Bactrian camel have?
Two
One-humped dromedaries make up 94% of the world's camels.