African Wild Dogs
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40 free African Wild Dogs trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
African wild dogs are among the most social hunters on the continent, and among the least understood. They live in close-knit packs that share food, look after their sick and settle group decisions in ways that surprised the scientists who first recorded them. This quiz gathers the best fun facts about African wild dogs: how to recognise one, what its scientific name means, how a pack hunts and raises its young, and which rivals it has to watch for. It also covers where the species still survives, why its numbers have fallen, and the stories people have told about it for thousands of years. The questions begin with the facts most wildlife fans half-know and end with a few deep cuts, so they suit curious kids, classrooms, safari planners and quiz nights alike. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will finish knowing more than when you started.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01African wild dog packs appear to vote on whether to set off on a hunt by doing what?
Sneezing
Sneezing works like a show of hands: the more dogs that join in at a pre-hunt rally, the more likely the pack is to leave. When a top-ranking dog starts, about three sneezes are enough.
Q 02The African wild dog's scientific name, Lycaon pictus, is usually translated as which two-word phrase?
Painted wolf
Painted wolf suits the blotched, multicoloured fur. One conservation group promotes it as the everyday name too, arguing that 'wild dog' gives the animal a bad image.
Q 03At a kill, which members of an African wild dog pack are allowed to eat first, ahead of every adult?
The youngest pups
The youngest pups eat even before the pack's leaders, a privilege that ends once they become yearlings. Lower-ranking adults stand guard and help feed them.
Q 04Which feature found on most dogs' front legs is missing in the African wild dog?
Dewclaws
Dewclaws are the small fifth toes set high on most dogs' front legs. Losing them is thought to have lengthened the African wild dog's stride and raised its speed.
Q 05Coenraad Temminck, who first described the African wild dog, mistook it for which kind of animal?
A hyena
A hyena is what Temminck took his specimen for, naming it Hyaena picta. Seven years later Joshua Brookes recognised the animal as a member of the dog family.
Q 06Who narrated the BBC series Dynasties, whose African wild dog episode followed the ageing matriarch Tait?
David Attenborough
David Attenborough told how Tait's pack was driven from its territory by a rival pack led by her own daughter, Blacktip. Blacktip's pack then pursued them for eight months.
Q 07How do African wild dogs returning from a hunt deliver meat to pack members left behind at the den?
They regurgitate it
They regurgitate it, and not only for the young: unlike most social predators, African wild dogs also bring up meat for adults, so babysitters and injured dogs still get fed.
Q 08Researchers tell African wild dogs apart by which feature, as unique to each animal as a fingerprint?
Coat pattern
Coat pattern differs on every dog, and even the two sides of one animal often differ. The dogs seem to use it too, recognising one another from 50 to 100 metres away.
Q 09A pack of African wild dogs was once recorded on the summit of which African mountain, far above the savanna?
Kilimanjaro
Kilimanjaro is an odd place for a hunter of open plains, which normally avoids even forest because trees block its view of prey.
Q 10Which big cat is a major killer of African wild dogs, attacking adults and young but rarely eating them?
Lion
Lion prides kill the dogs as rivals rather than as food, and African wild dog numbers tend to stay low wherever the cats are plentiful.
Q 11South Africa's largest population of African wild dogs lives in which national park?
Kruger
Kruger has long held the largest share of the country's few hundred wild dogs, in packs that typically number just four or five adults.
Q 12Which conservation category has the IUCN Red List given the African wild dog for more than three decades?
Endangered
Endangered has been its status since 1990, largely because the survivors are split into dozens of small populations, the biggest probably holding fewer than 250 dogs.
Q 13African wild dogs are easy to recognise by their very large ears, which are which shape?
Rounded
Rounded ears, often likened to a bat's, sit on a skull that is shorter and broader than those of other members of the dog family.
Q 21Which African wild dogs usually leave their home pack once grown, the reverse of most social carnivores?
Young females
Young females set off to join other packs while most of their brothers stay put, a habit shared with gorillas and chimpanzees.
Q 22What colour is the tip of most African wild dogs' bushy tails, thought to work as a flag during hunts?
White
White tips may help pack members keep each other in sight on a hunt, though a few dogs lack the pale tip entirely.
Q 23Which deadly disease has nearly wiped out whole populations of African wild dogs?
Rabies
Rabies nearly wiped out the packs of one southern African national park in 2006, so conservationists now help vaccinate pet dogs in the villages around it.
Q 14At which times of day do African wild dogs do most of their hunting, apart from the odd moonlit night?
Dawn and dusk
Dawn and dusk are cooler than midday yet still light enough for a hunter that finds its prey by sight rather than smell.
Q 15African wild dogs catch antelope mainly through which hunting method?
A long stamina chase
A long stamina chase wears the prey down, typically over about two kilometres, with the dogs biting at the legs and belly of larger animals until they stop running.
Q 16Which small antelope of the East African plains is the African wild dog's most common prey there?
Thomson's gazelle
Thomson's gazelle tops the menu in East Africa, and a pack can finish one in about 15 minutes. Farther south the dogs more often take impala.
Q 17Genome sequencing found signs of ancient interbreeding between the African wild dog and which Asian canid?
Dhole
Dhole and African wild dog now live continents apart, but during the Pleistocene the dhole ranged as far west as Europe, which may have brought the two together.
Q 18African wild dogs are carved on stone cosmetic palettes from the earliest days of which ancient civilisation?
Egypt
Egypt's predynastic hunters seem to have identified with the animal: the Hunters Palette shows men wearing African wild dog tails on their belts.
Q 19In a story told by the San people, the moon cursed which animal to be hunted forever by African wild dogs?
The hare
The hare had rebuffed the moon's promise that all living things would be reborn after death, so the tale ties African wild dogs to the origin of death itself.
Q 20In a typical African wild dog pack, which members normally produce all of the young, helped by everyone else?
One dominant pair
One dominant pair usually does all the breeding, because an average pack could never catch enough food to raise more than two litters.
Q 24The Okavango Delta, where scientists studied African wild dog rallies before hunts, lies in which country?
Botswana
Botswana holds one of the biggest remaining populations, and packs in its delta have been seen eating fruit just before setting out to hunt.
Q 25African wild dog mothers usually give birth in a burrow dug and abandoned by which other animal?
Aardvark
Aardvark holes, lined with grass, shelter the newborns for their first three to four weeks, after which the young become the whole pack's responsibility.
Q 26Mana Pools National Park, where the BBC filmed the African wild dog matriarch Tait, lies in which country?
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's Mana Pools lies on the Zambezi floodplain, and its name comes from the Shona word for 'four', after four large permanent pools.
Q 27Male African wild dogs usually take on the risky job of seizing which tusked prey animal by the nose?
Warthogs
Warthogs fight back with sharp tusks, which is why gripping the snout counts as dangerous work that usually falls to the males.
Q 28Which high-pitched sound accompanies the excited greeting rituals of African wild dogs, alongside whining?
Twittering
Twittering and whining fill the air as the dogs greet one another, part of a vocal range that also runs to yelps, squeals, whispers and moans.
Q 29The African wild dog's fur is unusual among canids because it consists entirely of which kind of hair?
Stiff bristles
Stiff bristles with no underfur make for a thin covering, and the blackish skin can show through where the hair is sparse.
Q 30The African wild dog's blade-like 'trenchant heel' tooth is shared with which small South American canid?
Bush dog
Bush dog teeth have the same single cutting cusp on the lower carnassial, which lengthens the blade and lets a meal be sliced up and bolted faster.