60 Fun Facts About Zoo Animals Trivia for Kids

A group of lions is called what?

A pride is mostly related females and cubs, with just one or a few adult males.

Outside Africa, wild lions live in only one other country. Which?

They live in the Gir Forest, and long ago lions roamed from Europe all the way to India.

Which two kinds of tiger are the largest?

Tigers live mostly alone and defend their own patch of forest.

What is special about every zebra's stripes?

Like fingerprints, no two zebras have the same pattern.

Which animals are the hippo's closest living relatives?

They split apart about 55 million years ago, even though hippos look like giant pigs.

When do hippos come out of the water to eat grass?

They spend the hot day cooling off in water or mud.

A rhino's horn is made of the same stuff as what?

It is keratin, and there are five kinds of rhino: two in Africa and three in Asia.

What is the leader of a gorilla troop called?

Gorillas are the largest primates alive, with arm spans up to 2.6 metres.

Chimpanzees use sticks and stones as tools to get which food, among others?

Nearly every chimp group ever studied uses tools, and their DNA is almost 99% the same as ours.

Wild orangutans live on which two islands?

Their name comes from Malay words meaning person of the forest.

What do giant pandas eat almost all day long?

They have a false thumb on each front paw that helps them grip the stalks.

Giant pandas live in the wild in only one country. Which?

A 2015 survey counted about 1,864 wild pandas.

Red pandas are not bears. Which animals are they most closely related to?

They live in the eastern Himalayas and were named panda first, in 1825, before the giant panda.

Which is the biggest species in the kangaroo family?

The word macropod means large foot, and the smallest members of the family are called wallabies.

Koalas sleep for up to how many hours a day?

They eat mostly eucalyptus leaves, and they are marsupials, not bears.

Only one kind of penguin lives at the equator. Which one, named after its islands?

All the rest live in the Southern Hemisphere, and none live wild at the North Pole.

Which is the largest kind of penguin, standing about 1.1 metres tall?

Adults stand about 1.1 metres tall and weigh around 35 kg.

Who keeps a big Antarctic penguin's egg warm on his feet all winter?

He balances it on his feet for over two months without eating, losing about 12 kg.

What colour is a polar bear's skin under its white fur?

It is the biggest bear and the biggest meat-eater on land, and it mostly hunts seals.

Meerkats are a small kind of which animal?

They live in big burrows in southern Africa and take turns standing guard for predators.

Why are flamingos pink?

Carotenoids in their plankton diet do it; a pale flamingo is usually a hungry one.

What is a group of flamingos called?

They usually stand on one leg, possibly to keep warm in cold water.

What is a female peacock called?

Only the males have the huge fan of feathers, and the blue peafowl comes from India.

Crocodiles and alligators look alike. How can you tell them apart when their mouths are shut?

Alligator jaws are wider on top, so their bottom teeth tuck away out of sight.

Harriet, a Galápagos tortoise kept in captivity, lived to be at least how old?

Wild ones live over 100 years and can weigh up to 417 kg, the biggest tortoises on Earth.

Ring-tailed lemurs live wild in only one place. Where?

They live in troops of up to 30, and the females are in charge.

Sea otters have the thickest fur of any animal. What do they use rocks for?

That makes them one of the few mammals that use tools.

What is one easy way to tell a sea lion from a seal?

They can also walk on all four flippers, which true seals cannot do.

What is really stored inside a camel's hump?

The idea that it holds water is a myth; the fat is an energy reserve for long trips.

How many humps does a Bactrian camel have?

One-humped dromedaries make up 94% of the world's camels.

Llamas come from which part of the world?

Andean people have used them to carry packs since before Columbus, and they can haul about a quarter of their body weight.

What is the largest rodent in the world?

It lives near water in South America in groups of 10 to 20, sometimes 100.

Tapirs look a bit like pigs but have what on their faces?

There are four kinds: the South American, Malayan, Baird's and mountain tapir.

Where do toucans make their nests?

Their giant colourful bills are not much use for digging, so they borrow holes.

Macaws are big colourful members of which bird family?

They come from the Americas and have long tails.

How does a green anaconda kill its prey?

It is one of the longest and heaviest snakes alive and lives in South American swamps.

What does a chameleon use to catch insects?

Chameleons can also change colour, grip with a curly tail and move each eye separately.

Warthogs are a kind of wild what?

The males have tusks up to 25 inches long, and they live across Africa south of the Sahara.

Sloths spend most of their lives doing what?

There are seven kinds, in two families: two-toed and three-toed, though all have three toes on their back feet.

Elephants are the largest animals living where?

There are three kinds: African bush, African forest and Asian elephants.

What is the bony bump on top of the head of the world's tallest animal called?

Giraffes are the tallest animals on land, and males fight by swinging their necks.

Ostriches lay the biggest eggs of any land animal. How fast can they run?

They are the biggest and heaviest birds alive, but they cannot fly.

What is the fastest land animal?

It can hit 93 to 104 km/h and has black tear marks running down its face.

The Komodo dragon is the biggest what in the world?

Males grow to 3 metres and 150 kg, and they live only on a few Indonesian islands.

The okapi has zebra stripes on its legs, but which tall animal is it most closely related to?

It lives in the forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is nicknamed the forest giraffe.

Bats are the only mammals that can do what?

There are at least 1,500 kinds, about a fifth of all mammal species.

What is a group of owls called?

Owls' forward-facing eyes give them great depth perception for hunting at night.

Bald eagles build the biggest nests of any North American bird. How heavy can one get?

Nests can be 4 metres deep and 2.5 metres wide, and the eagles reuse them for years.

Burmese pythons have become a big problem in which US state after pet snakes escaped?

They grow to about 5 metres and eat their way through the Everglades' wildlife.

Which is the world's oldest scientific zoo, opened in 1828?

The very word zoo was first used as a short name for the London Zoological Gardens.

The San Diego Zoo was a pioneer of what kind of animal exhibit?

It sits in Balboa Park and houses more than 12,000 animals.

How many animals did the Bronx Zoo have when it opened in 1899?

Today it covers 265 acres, the largest city zoo in the United States.

Tigers can cross rivers 8 km wide. How do they get across?

On hot days tigers happily sit in the water to cool down, but they are not great tree climbers once fully grown.

How far away can a tiger's roar be heard?

Tigers are usually silent, but they roar several times in a row to tell other tigers where they are.

Snow leopards live high in the mountains. Why are their paws so wide and furry?

Its small round ears also help it keep warm high in the mountains of Asia.

How many teeth does a giant anteater have?

Instead it uses a sticky tongue up to 45 cm long that flicks in and out about 160 times a minute to scoop up ants.

What is a group of kangaroos called?

A baby kangaroo is a joey, a male can be called a boomer and a female a flyer.

Emperors are the biggest of these flightless sea birds. Which kind is the smallest?

Penguins spend about half their lives on land and half in the sea, and almost all live south of the equator.

What colour are a zebra foal's stripes when it is born?

The brown darkens as the foal grows up, and underneath all that fur a zebra's skin is black.

Where are baby hippos born?

Hippos stay cool in rivers and lakes all day and only come out at dusk to eat grass.