Brown Tree Snake
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40 free Brown Tree Snake trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The brown tree snake is a slender, mildly venomous climber from the forests of the South Pacific, and one of the most notorious invasive animals on Earth. After it slipped onto the island of Guam as a stowaway, it multiplied until the forests there held more snakes than almost anywhere else, and most of the native forest birds disappeared. These fun facts about the brown tree snake cover the whole story: how the snake climbs, hunts and uses its venom, where it lives in its native range, how it reached Guam, what happened to the island's wildlife, and the unusual methods people now use to fight it and to keep it from spreading. The questions suit reptile fans, students working on an invasive-species project, and anyone curious about how one stowaway changed an island. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up a new fact with each question.
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Q 01What does Guam scatter by helicopter over its forests, laced with poison, to kill brown tree snakes?
Dead mice
Dead mice carry the dose: in one aerial trial over a 55-hectare forest plot, 11 of the 30 radio-tagged snakes there died.
Q 02With its forest birds eaten by brown tree snakes, Guam's jungles hold up to 40 times more of what?
Spiders
Spiders boomed because the lost birds ate them and competed with them for insects; hikers on Guam now carry a stick to knock the webs out of their path.
Q 03Which everyday painkiller is so toxic to brown tree snakes that Guam uses it as a poison?
Acetaminophen
Acetaminophen, the drug in Tylenol, kills the snakes at a dose of just 80 milligrams, and in one treated test plot not a single snake survived.
Q 04Guam's brown tree snakes climb wide, smooth poles with a newly found movement named after what?
A lasso
A lasso is what the snake's body resembles as it loops round the pole and inches upward, adding a fifth mode of snake movement to the four that had stood for nearly 100 years.
Q 05Brown tree snakes climbing into equipment on Guam caused over 1,600 of what in one 20-year span?
Power outages
Power outages follow when a snake climbs the lines or crawls into a transformer, and the worst of them have blacked out the whole island.
Q 06Which animals are trained to check outbound cargo on Guam for stowaway brown tree snakes?
Dogs
Dogs sniff through freight before it leaves the island, and other teams use them to track down snakes loose in the forest.
Q 07Which amphibian is one of only two proven predators of the brown tree snake identified in a study?
Cane toad
Cane toad releases were never tried: like the other proven predator, a black snake, it eats almost anything and would have menaced the wildlife it was meant to save.
Q 08Brown tree snakes reached Guam as military stowaways in the years just after which conflict?
World War II
World War II left Guam a busy military hub, and by 1952 a snake from the South Pacific had slipped ashore, probably hidden in ship cargo.
Q 09Direct military flights from Guam put which US state most at risk of a brown tree snake invasion?
Hawaii
Hawaii found eight brown tree snakes between 1981 and 1998, every one linked to vehicles or cargo arriving from Guam.
Q 10Brown tree snakes belong to a genus nicknamed for having vertical pupils like which animals?
Cats
Cats lend their name to the whole genus, the cat-eyed snakes, whose slit pupils suit hunters that work the treetops after dark.
Q 11Where in its mouth does the brown tree snake carry the small grooved fangs that deliver its venom?
At the back
At the back is an awkward spot for biting people: the snake must open its mouth as wide as it can to bring its fangs to bear, so a grown person gets only a small dose.
Q 12Lacking hollow fangs, how does a brown tree snake work its venom into an animal it has seized?
By chewing
By chewing, the snake lets venom seep along the grooves in its fangs by capillary action instead of injecting it through a hollow needle.
Q 13Brown tree snake bites have caused serious medical trouble only in which group of people?
Young children
Q 21Hunted out of Guam's forests by brown tree snakes, the sihek is what kind of brightly coloured bird?
A kingfisher
A kingfisher with a rusty-cinnamon head and iridescent blue feathers, the sihek survived only in captivity for decades after it vanished from the wild in the 1980s.
Q 22Zoo-bred sihek from Guam were freed in 2024 on which Pacific atoll, far from any brown tree snakes?
Palmyra
Palmyra Atoll gave the nine released birds a safe start, and in 2025 they produced the first sihek eggs laid in the wild in nearly 40 years.
Q 23Guam's flightless ko'ko', all but wiped out by brown tree snakes, belongs to which group of birds?
Rails
Rails are ground birds built to run, and the ko'ko' once numbered 60,000 to 80,000 before biologists caught the last wild ones in the 1980s to breed them in safety.
Young children are at risk because their low body mass makes a small dose count, a real worry on an island where the snakes find their way into homes.
Q 14What does the bad-tempered brown tree snake typically do when it feels cornered or threatened?
Strikes repeatedly
Strikes repeatedly, lunging again and again at whatever alarmed it: a fierce show from a snake whose bite is not considered dangerous to a grown person.
Q 15Besides New Guinea and nearby islands, the brown tree snake is native to coasts of which country?
Australia
Australia is home to far deadlier snakes; the brown tree snake lives along its coast from the Sydney area round the tropical north to the Kimberley.
Q 16Boldly banded reddish brown tree snakes from the north of their native range go by which nickname?
Night tigers
Night tigers wear rich reddish-brown and creamy-white bands, a far flashier coat than the plain brown most of the species is named for.
Q 17The brown tree snake belongs to which family, the largest of all the snake families?
Colubrids
Colubrids are mostly harmless to people, but a minority, the brown tree snake among them, carry short grooved fangs and a mild venom.
Q 18Besides ship cargo, brown tree snakes probably reached Guam by crawling into which part of aircraft?
Landing gear
Landing gear bays offer a dark, sheltered hiding place, which is why aircraft and freight leaving Guam are still searched for stowaways.
Q 19Stray brown tree snakes from Guam have even been reported in which state in the continental US?
Texas
Texas found its stowaway in Corpus Christi, in a cargo box shipped from Guam, though the species has never established itself anywhere on the US mainland.
Q 20Which Japanese island has reported sightings of stray brown tree snakes from Guam?
Okinawa
Okinawa joins Wake Island, Tinian and Diego Garcia on the list of far-flung places where stowaways from Guam have been sighted.
Q 24Starlings that survived Guam's brown tree snakes keep its forests growing by spreading what?
Seeds
Seeds come from the pulp the starling eats, and with the other feeders gone it is the only native bird left on Guam to carry them through the forest.
Q 25On Guam the brown tree snake has few natural enemies apart from feral pigs and which native reptile?
Mariana monitor
Mariana monitor numbers never checked the invasion, and as the snakes stripped the forest of prey this big predator turned to eating invertebrates and raiding garbage.
Q 26What kind of animal is the fanihi, a furry, winged Guam pollinator also hit by brown tree snakes?
A fruit bat
A fruit bat called a flying fox for its fox-like face, the fanihi pollinates Guam's forest trees as it feeds.
Q 27Sihek and ko'ko', names of Guam birds hit by the brown tree snake, come from which language?
Chamorro
Chamorro is the indigenous language of Guam, and the programmes working to bring the island's birds back now use its names for them.
Q 28Brown tree snakes hide up to a dozen oblong eggs in hollow logs, each with a shell of what texture?
Leathery
Leathery shells need shelter from drying and heat, so the mother picks hollow logs and rock crevices, and the eggs hatch about 90 days later.
Q 29When are brown tree snakes on Guam thought to breed?
All year round
All year round breeding helped the invaders multiply until some forests held more than 100 snakes per hectare.
Q 30Besides venom, how does a brown tree snake often hold struggling prey still while it feeds?
Coiling around it
Coiling around it like a constrictor pins the animal in place, giving the snake time to work its fangs in.