Amphibians
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50 free Amphibians trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Amphibians were the first backboned animals to try living on land, and they have never quite left the pond behind. That in-between existence has produced some of the oddest creatures on Earth: frogs that freeze solid and thaw out again, salamanders that regrow whole limbs, and parents that raise their young in places you would never guess. This quiz covers the whole class. Expect questions on frogs, toads, newts and salamanders, on how they breathe, breed and defend themselves, on the biggest, smallest and most poisonous species, and on the science words a biology lesson expects you to know. A few questions follow amphibians into folklore, children's books, film and the laboratory. It is written for curious players of any age, from students revising a biology unit to wildlife fans and quiz-night regulars. The opening questions are friendly and the later ones are tougher, and every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will finish knowing more than when you started.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01From the 1930s, doctors injected African clawed frogs with a woman's urine to test for what?
Pregnancy
Pregnancy hormones in the urine made the frog produce eggs within 8 to 12 hours. Worked out in Cape Town, the test stayed in use around the world into the 1960s.
Q 02Which body parts does a frog retract into its skull to help push food down its throat?
Eyeballs
A frog's eyeballs drop through holes in the skull and press down on the food. Frogs swallow prey whole, so the extra push from above helps.
Q 03Which puppeteer made the first Kermit puppet from a discarded coat and two halves of a ping-pong ball?
Jim Henson
Jim Henson cut the 1955 prototype from a turquoise spring coat that had belonged to his mother. That first Kermit was a vague lizard-like creature and only later became a frog.
Q 04Which salamander from the Valley of Mexico keeps its external gills for life and can regrow lost limbs?
Axolotl
The axolotl never grows out of its larval form, a trait called neoteny. It can rebuild limbs, gills and even parts of its brain without leaving a scar.
Q 05A frog sheds its outer skin every few weeks; what does it usually do with the old skin?
Eats it
The frog eats it. The loose skin is worked forwards towards the head and quickly swallowed, and other amphibians often do the same.
Q 06Which amphibian, released in Queensland in 1935 to eat crop-destroying beetles, became a notorious Australian pest?
Cane toad
The cane toad failed at the job because the beetles live high on the stalks, out of reach of a poor climber. It spread across northern Australia instead.
Q 07South American horned frogs, round hunters with huge mouths, are nicknamed after which video game character?
Pac-Man
Pac-Man lent his name to these frogs because of their round shape and enormous mouths. A Pacman frog will swallow mice, fish and even other frogs.
Q 08Ancient writers such as Aristotle and Pliny passed on the belief that a salamander could walk unharmed through what?
Fire
Fire was said to be the salamander's own element, and Aristotle reported the story that the animal could even put out flames. Linnaeus still noted the legend when he described salamanders in 1758.
Q 09Which skin growths, really caused by a human virus, does old folk belief blame on handling a toad?
Warts
Warts come from the human papillomavirus, which toads do not carry. The bumps on a toad are glands, and German folklore held that touching one under a full moon was a cure.
Q 10Frogs range from the tropics to subarctic regions, yet which continent has no frogs at all?
Antarctica
Antarctica is the only continent without frogs. Everywhere else they are missing mainly from remote islands far from any mainland.
Q 11What name is given to the body-wide change that turns a swimming tadpole into a four-legged frog?
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is a sudden switch to the adult form at the end of the tadpole stage. Some species get through it inside the egg and hatch as tiny frogs.
Q 12Amphibians share which trait with reptiles and fish, leaving them reliant on their surroundings for body heat?
Being cold-blooded
Being cold-blooded, or ectothermic, means an amphibian cannot warm itself from within. The upside is a low metabolic rate, so it needs very little food and energy.
Q 13The word amphibian comes from an Ancient Greek term with what literal meaning?
Both kinds of life
Q 21Which Central and South American amphibians have belly skin so clear that the beating heart shows through?
Glass frogs
Glass frogs take the trick further when they sleep: most of their blood is tucked away in the liver, which makes a resting frog much harder to spot on a leaf.
Q 22Chytridiomycosis, a skin disease behind amphibian declines on several continents, is caused by what kind of organism?
A fungus
A fungus known as a chytrid causes the disease, and in some populations it kills every animal it infects. Its worldwide spread has been put down to international trade.
Q 23Which organs are entirely missing in plethodontids, the largest salamander family with over 500 species?
Lungs
Both kinds of life is the literal sense of the Greek amphibios. The word was first used for any animal at home on land and in water, seals and otters included.
Q 14Which amphibian, found near waterfalls in Cameroon and weighing several kilograms, is the largest of all living frogs?
Goliath frog
The goliath frog builds its own nursery pools beside rivers, sometimes shifting large stones to do it. Biologists think that heavy lifting may help explain its size.
Q 15The largest living amphibians, giant salamanders that can reach 1.8 metres, live in the rivers of which country?
China
China is home to the record-holders, which can weigh 50 kg. Prized as a delicacy and farmed in very large numbers, they are critically endangered in the wild.
Q 16The golden poison frog, often called the most poisonous animal alive, lives wild only in which country?
Colombia
Colombia's coastal rainforest is its only home. One wild frog is estimated to carry about a milligram of toxin, enough to kill between 10 and 20 people.
Q 17Poison dart frogs bred in captivity are harmless because wild ones get their toxins from what?
Their diet
Their diet supplies the poison: wild frogs store alkaloids from the ants, mites and centipedes they hunt. Given the right food again, a captive-bred frog can turn toxic.
Q 18Which 1908 children's novel features the reckless, motorcar-mad Mr. Toad of Toad Hall?
The Wind in the Willows
The Wind in the Willows grew out of bedtime stories Kenneth Grahame told his son. Toad's motoring craze lands him in prison, and he escapes disguised as a washerwoman.
Q 19Which American author first found fame with a short story about a champion jumping frog from Calaveras County?
Mark Twain
Mark Twain said he heard the tale at a hotel in Angels Camp, California, in 1865. The town now holds a Jumping Frog Jubilee every May and is nicknamed Frogtown.
Q 20Frog eggs have no shell; each egg in a clump of frogspawn is instead wrapped in what?
Jelly
Jelly surrounds each egg as the female releases her spawn. With no shell to stop them drying out, amphibian eggs have to be laid in water or somewhere damp.
Lungs are absent, so these salamanders take in oxygen through their moist skin and the lining of the mouth. Skin alone handles well over four fifths of the job.
Q 24Which limbless, burrowing amphibians, named from the Latin for blind, are often mistaken for worms or snakes?
Caecilians
Caecilians live mostly hidden in tropical soil, so few people ever see one. In some species the mother grows a fatty outer layer of skin that her young peel off and feed on.
Q 25Which branch of zoology, named from the Greek for creeping animal, covers both amphibians and reptiles?
Herpetology
Herpetology treats the two groups together because Linnaeus once placed them in a single class. The study of amphibians alone has its own name, batrachology.
Q 26The classic ribbit croak so often heard in films is really the call of which North American amphibian?
Pacific tree frog
The Pacific tree frog's males call so loudly that one can sound like several frogs at once. That croak became the stock frog noise of cinema.
Q 27Which Italian scientist found in 1780 that a dead frog's legs twitch when touched by an electric spark?
Luigi Galvani
Luigi Galvani's twitching frogs were an early study of bioelectricity. His reports were on Mary Shelley's reading list in the summer that produced Frankenstein.
Q 28In whose 1812 telling of The Frog Prince is the frog thrown against a wall rather than kissed?
The Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm made it the very first tale in their collection. The spell-breaking kiss came later, apparently appearing first in English translations.
Q 29Wood frogs survive being frozen solid in winter by flooding their cells with which sugar as an antifreeze?
Glucose
Glucose pours out of the liver once ice starts to form, limiting how much of the body freezes. A frozen wood frog has no heartbeat or breathing, yet it revives in spring.
Q 30Male Darwin's frogs of Chile and Argentina carry their growing tadpoles inside which part of the body?
Vocal sac
The vocal sac becomes a nursery once the father gulps down the eggs just before they hatch. The tadpoles stay there, living on yolk and on secretions from its wall, until they have turned into frogs.