Animal Sounds
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40 free Animal Sounds trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Animals bark, boom, click, drum and sing for the same reasons people talk: to find a partner, warn off a rival, keep the family together or raise the alarm. Some of those sounds carry for miles, some are pitched beyond human hearing, and a few are so strange that film-makers borrow them for creatures that never made them. This quiz asks you to name the animal from a description of its call, and to match well-known noises to their makers. It also covers what the sounds are called, how birds, insects, reptiles and sea mammals actually produce them, and the surprising things scientists have learned by listening closely. There is no audio to play, so it works anywhere: in a classroom, on a car journey or at a quiz night. The easier questions suit children and beginners, and the hardest will test keen naturalists. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Australian bird marks its territory at dawn and dusk with a call like loud human laughter?
Kookaburra
Kookaburra laughter has been edited into Hollywood jungle scenes since the Tarzan films of the 1930s, although the bird is native to eastern Australia.
Q 02Which African carnivore has a giggling laugh whose pitch reveals the age of the animal making it?
Spotted hyena
Spotted hyena whoops are just as informative: each animal's whoop carries its own signature, so clan members may tell one another apart by sound alone.
Q 03Which large cat does not roar and instead chirps like a bird to find lost cubs or greet a companion?
Cheetah
Cheetah chirps can be heard a mile away, and they vary so much between individuals that the cats may recognise each other by them.
Q 04Which marine mammal's males sing complex songs that a best-selling 1970 album made famous?
Humpback whale
Humpback whale males in the same area sing much the same song, and when one alters it the others copy the change.
Q 05Which familiar sound do adult domestic cats rarely make to each other, saving it mostly for people?
Meow
Meow calls aimed at humans are probably a kitten's mew carried into adult life, a habit that developed after domestication.
Q 06Which Australian songbird has been recorded mimicking chainsaws, car alarms and camera shutters?
Lyrebird
Lyrebird mimicry of other birds is so accurate that even the species being copied can fail to tell the imitation from the real song.
Q 07Which land animals keep in touch over long distances with rumbles too low for humans to hear?
Elephants
Elephants make infrasonic calls below 20 hertz, and African herds may stay in contact this way across as much as 10 km.
Q 08Which marine mammals each develop a signature whistle that others use to identify the individual?
Dolphins
Dolphins learn the whistle rather than inheriting it, and a calf's version borrows from several whistles instead of copying a single one.
Q 09Dolbear's law uses the calling rate of which insects to estimate the air temperature?
Crickets
Crickets chirp faster as the air warms, a link physicist Amos Dolbear set out in 1897 in a paper that treated the insect as a thermometer.
Q 10Which birds claim territory with rapid drum rolls on trees, a signal that does the job of a song?
Woodpeckers
Woodpeckers each drum to a pattern unique to the species, set by the number of beats, the length of the roll and the gap between rolls.
Q 11Which big cat's family groups keep in contact with night-time roars that carry about 8 km?
Lion
Lion prides often split into smaller groups that stay in touch by roaring, and both males and females also roar to mark their territory.
Q 12Which bird is named for the male's two-note spring call?
Cuckoo
Cuckoo first appears in English in a 13th-century song welcoming summer; cuckoo clocks copy the male's two notes with small bellows and pipes.
Q 13Which pet rodent gives a loud 'wheek' whistle when it hears a fridge door open or a food bag rustle?
Guinea pig
Guinea pig owners hear it so often because the animals learn which household noises mean food is on the way.
Q 21Which farmyard animal's call is written 'kikeriki' in German and 'cocorico' in French?
Rooster
Rooster crows sound the same everywhere but are spelled to suit each language; English settles on the much longer cock-a-doodle-doo.
Q 22Which African river animal's most common call is a 'wheeze honk' that carries far through the air?
Hippopotamus
Hippopotamus groups react more strongly to the wheeze honks of strangers than to those of neighbours they already know.
Q 23Which marsupial did early explorers first encounter by hearing its far-reaching screeches at night?
Tasmanian devil
Tasmanian devil calls so unnerved the explorers that an early name for the animal was Beelzebub's pup, after a prince of hell.
Q 14Which word names a donkey's loud hee-haw call, which can carry for more than three kilometres?
Braying
Braying typically lasts about twenty seconds, and it may help wild donkeys keep in contact across the wide spaces of the desert.
Q 15Which call do male wild turkeys give in early spring, audible up to a mile away?
Gobble
Gobble calls are aimed at both females and rival males, and they explain why an adult male turkey is known as a gobbler.
Q 16Which word did zoologist Donald Griffin coin for how bats navigate by their own calls bouncing back?
Echolocation
Echolocation was first demonstrated in bats by Griffin and Robert Galambos, while the version used by toothed whales was not properly described until 1956.
Q 17Which insects sing at up to 120 decibels by rapidly buckling drum-like organs called tymbals?
Cicadas
Cicadas are so loud that calling males disable their own eardrums to avoid damaging their hearing.
Q 18Which Latin American primate's call, one of the loudest of any land animal, carries about three miles?
Howler monkey
Howler monkey males draw air through a cavity in an enlarged hyoid bone in the throat, a bone that is larger in males than in females.
Q 19Which balloon-like pouch of skin do most male frogs inflate to amplify their mating calls?
Vocal sac
Vocal sac membranes resonate with the vibrations of the larynx, so the call carries further and draws females from a wider area.
Q 20Films often dub which bird's fierce scream over footage of the weaker-voiced bald eagle?
Red-tailed hawk
Red-tailed hawk screams became the stock raptor cry because the eagle's real call is a weak, chirping whistle that sounds a little like a gull.
Q 24Which African animals, once thought by biologists to be mute, appear to hum to each other at night?
Giraffes
Giraffes also snort, moan, grunt and make flute-like sounds, though early biologists believed they could not move enough air to make a sound.
Q 25Which deep-diving toothed giant makes clicks of up to 236 decibels, the loudest sound of any animal?
Sperm whale
Sperm whale clicks are made by forcing air through a pair of so-called phonic lips at the front of the nose, just below the blowhole.
Q 26A rattlesnake's rattle is a chain of hollow segments, one added at each shed, made of which material?
Keratin
Keratin, the same protein found in fingernails, forms each hollow link, and the links knock together when special shaker muscles vibrate the tail.
Q 27Which 'barkless' dog breed makes a yodel-like sound instead, owing to an unusually shaped larynx?
Basenji
Basenji dogs are hunters from Central Africa, where one local name refers to their habit of jumping straight up to spot their quarry.
Q 28Which wild North American canine's scientific name, Canis latrans, means 'barking dog'?
Coyote
Coyote yips, howls and barks have led naturalists to describe it as the most vocal of all wild North American mammals.
Q 29Which small crustacean stuns prey by snapping an oversized claw, a noise that can disrupt sonar?
Pistol shrimp
Pistol shrimp can swap weapons: if the big claw is lost, the small one grows into a new snapper while a small claw regrows in its place.
Q 30Which Arctic animal is nicknamed the sea canary for its high-pitched squeaks, clucks and whistles?
Beluga
Beluga calls are shaped by the melon, the bulging organ on the forehead, which visibly changes shape as the animal makes sounds.