Bears
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132 free Bears trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free bears trivia questions with answers. Are you a bear expert or just curious about these magnificent creatures? Our interactive bears trivia quiz features 50 engaging questions that will test your knowledge of bear species, their habitats, behaviors, and fascinating facts from around the world. Whether you're interested in grizzly bears, pandas, polar bears, or black bears, this quiz covers all the essentials.
30 of 132 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which so-called bear is really a marsupial?
Koala
Koala: despite the 'koala bear' nickname it is a pouched marsupial, and its closest living relatives are not bears at all but the wombats.
Q 02On which continent did the Atlas bear die out in the 19th century?
Africa
Africa: the Atlas bear, a brown bear of the mountains of Morocco and Algeria, was the continent's only bear in modern times, and its loss left Africa with no bears at all.
Q 03The sun bear's nickname, 'honey bear', owes much to which unusually long body part that reaches deep into bee nests?
Tongue
Tongue: a sun bear rips a nest open with its claws, then extends its exceptionally long tongue to draw out the honey and insects inside.
Q 04In which animated film does a witch's spell turn a Scottish queen into a bear?
Brave
Brave: Princess Merida's mother, Queen Elinor, is the one transformed, and the pair must undo the spell before she is caught by the kingdom's keenest bear hunter, her own husband.
Q 05Polar bears live only in the far north, so which famous cold-climate birds do they never meet in the wild?
Penguins
Penguins live almost entirely in the Southern Hemisphere; the North Atlantic once had a flightless seabird of its own, the great auk, until hunters killed the last known pair in 1844.
Q 06The giant panda's diet consists almost exclusively of what plant?
Bamboo
Bamboo is nearly all a giant panda eats, yet it still has a carnivore's digestive system, so it must spend up to 16 hours a day feeding to get enough from it.
Q 07Baloo, the bear who befriends the 'man-cub' Mowgli, first appeared in which work by Rudyard Kipling?
The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book: Kipling wrote Baloo as the 'sleepy brown bear' who teaches wolf cubs the Law of the Jungle, a sterner figure than the carefree 'jungle bum' of Disney's 1967 film.
Q 08On the stock market, a 'bear market' is one in which share prices are doing what?
Falling
Falling: the term is usually traced to the proverb about selling the bearskin before catching the bear, since a 'bear' sells stock he does not yet own, betting the price will drop.
Q 09What sets a bear's 'hibernation' apart from a ground squirrel's?
Their body temperature does not drop as dramatically
Their body temperature does not drop as dramatically: a denning bear cools by only a few degrees and is readily roused, which is why some physiologists don't count it as true hibernation.
Q 10Which reproductive strategy lets a female bear control when her cubs are born?
Delayed implantation
Delayed implantation: after mating the embryo floats undeveloped for months before it implants, so nearly all of a cub's growth is squeezed into the last weeks of the pregnancy.
Q 11When do female grizzly bears give birth to their cubs?
In the winter den while hibernating
In the winter den while hibernating: grizzly cubs arrive in January or February, which leaves them big enough to follow their mother out just as spring food returns.
Q 12What do biologists call the late-summer and autumn feeding frenzy in which bears gorge themselves to fatten up?
Hyperphagia
Hyperphagia: a bear's appetite soars and it eats and drinks to excess for weeks, laying down the fat it will live on until spring.
Q 13If a surprised grizzly makes contact in a defensive attack, what do US park rangers advise you to do?
Play dead
Q 21Paddington Bear is famously fond of sandwiches filled with what?
Marmalade
Marmalade: the habit is so fixed that when a 2007 advert had Paddington try Marmite in his sandwiches, his creator Michael Bond wrote to The Times to apologise.
Q 22Which bear species is nicknamed the 'moon bear' for the pale crescent marking on its coat?
Asiatic Black Bear
Asiatic Black Bear: the creamy crescent gives it the nickname, and it is a strong climber that goes up into the trees to feed on nuts and fruit.
Q 23In A. A. Milne's stories, Pooh Bear and his friends live in and around which wood?
Hundred Acre Wood
Hundred Acre Wood: Milne modelled it on Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, the countryside around his family's home south of London.
Play dead: lie on your stomach with your hands clasped behind your neck, because a grizzly defending itself or its cubs usually leaves once it decides you are no threat.
Q 14Which sounds do bears use as a warning when agitated or feeling threatened?
Growls or huffs
Growls or huffs are the warning: a stressed bear huffs, snorts and blows air, then escalates to growls, roars and bellows in aggressive encounters.
Q 15Polar bears are the most carnivorous of all bears; which animals make up most of their diet?
Seals
Seals, above all ringed seals: a polar bear will wait motionless beside a breathing hole in the sea ice, sometimes for hours, and strike when a seal comes up for air.
Q 16The sloth bear's specialised mouthparts are adapted for feeding on what primary food source?
Termites and ants
Termites and ants: a sloth bear rips a mound open with its claws, closes its nostrils to keep the insects out, and sucks them up through its long, mobile lips.
Q 17Yogi Bear spends his days swiping picnic baskets from visitors to which park?
Jellystone
Jellystone, a play on Yellowstone: Hanna-Barbera modelled Yogi's hat, tie and patter on Art Carney's Ed Norton from the sitcom The Honeymooners.
Q 18Which Alaskan island lends its name to the giant brown bears that rival polar bears as the largest of all?
Kodiak
Kodiak: cut off from other bears on their archipelago for about 12,000 years, Kodiak bears became a subspecies of their own, with big males weighing up to 1,500 pounds.
Q 19In what condition are bear cubs born?
Blind, helpless and nearly hairless
Blind, helpless and nearly hairless: a newborn cub weighs only about half a kilogram, so it depends entirely on its mother's body heat and fat-rich milk.
Q 20Which confectioner introduced the gummy bear in 1922, inspired by the trained bears of street fairs?
Haribo
Haribo: founder Hans Riegel of Bonn launched his 'Dancing Bear' sweets in 1922, and the company's name is built from the opening letters of Hans, Riegel and Bonn.
Q 24Which of these bears is native to South America?
Spectacled Bear
Spectacled Bear: also called the Andean bear, it is South America's only bear, a nimble climber that builds platforms of branches up in the trees for eating and sleeping.
Q 25During hibernation, bears experience a significant drop in which physiological process?
Heart rate
Heart rate: a hibernating bear's pulse slows from roughly 55 beats per minute to as few as 9, cutting its metabolic rate by up to three-quarters.
Q 26In 2016 the IUCN moved the giant panda from Endangered to which category?
Vulnerable
Vulnerable: the downgrade followed a Chinese survey that counted 1,864 pandas outside captivity, a recovery credited to China's work restoring their forest habitat.
Q 27What sound do bear cubs make when they are comfortable or nursing?
A motor-like humming
A motor-like humming: cubs keep up the pulsing hum as they nurse, and it is not only a baby sound, because grown bears have been heard humming too.
Q 28Which sense do bears rely on most to locate their food?
Smell
Smell is the sense bears find food by: their noses are extremely keen, and a good memory then leads them back to the places that fed them before.
Q 29Compared with brown bears, what is true of an American black bear's claws?
They are shorter
They are shorter: a black bear's claws are short and curved for gripping bark, which makes it much the better tree-climber, while a grizzly's long claws are built for digging.
Q 30Small bumps on the pads of a polar bear's huge paws help it to do what?
Grip slippery ice
Grip slippery ice: the rough bumps on the footpads act like the tread of a boot, and the fur growing around them is there to keep the feet warm as much as to stop them sliding.