Chimpanzee Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
55 free Chimpanzee trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This chimpanzee trivia quiz goes well beyond 'they share 99% of our DNA'. It covers chimp biology and behaviour: how their muscles outmatch ours, why they have 24 pairs of chromosomes to our 23, how a Taï hunting party divides into drivers, blockers, chasers and ambushers, what a pant-hoot is, and how the four-year Gombe Chimpanzee War unfolded. It also covers the chimps and people who made history: Jane Goodall and David Greybeard, Ham the astrochimp on Mercury-Redstone 2, Washoe and Nim Chimpsky in the sign-language wars, Ayumu beating humans at a memory test, Cheeta of the Tarzan films, Michael Jackson's Bubbles, and the London Zoo tea parties. Conservation questions cover the four subspecies and why the western chimpanzee is Critically Endangered. Every question was verified against a primary reference (mainly the Wikipedia article on the chimpanzee and the articles on the individual animals and researchers) and carries a citation. Pair it with our gorilla, orangutan and bonobo-flavoured primate questions for a full great-ape round.
30 of 55 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the easiest way to tell a chimpanzee apart from most monkeys?
It has no tail
It has no tail: a 2024 Nature study linked the loss of tails in apes to a small stretch of DNA inserted into a gene called TBXT.
Q 02What do primatologists call the chimpanzee who dominates the community?
The alpha male
The alpha male: allies help a chimp win and keep that rank, since coalitions let him dominate rivals he could never beat alone.
Q 03What can a chimpanzee do with its feet that a human can't?
Grasp with its big toe
Grasp with its big toe: such hand-like feet once led naturalists to class apes as Quadrumana, 'four-handed', and humans apart as Bimana.
Q 04How do chimpanzees often greet each other or make up after a fight?
With a kiss or an embrace
With a kiss or an embrace: touching eases tension, reassuring upset chimps and calming aggressive ones, which helps cement their social bonds.
Q 05Which human virus evolved from a simian virus carried by central chimpanzees?
HIV-1
HIV-1 came from SIVcpz in central chimpanzees; eastern chimps carry their own strain too, but it has never been found in people.
Q 06Which future politician starred opposite a chimpanzee in the 1951 comedy Bedtime for Bonzo?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan played a professor raising Bonzo to prove upbringing beats heredity; the chimp died soon after, so the 1952 sequel used another.
Q 07The first chimpanzee fossils ever found turned up in 2005 in which country famed for early human fossils?
Kenya
Kenya: the 500,000-year-old teeth lay in the Rift Valley beside fossils of an extinct Homo species, so chimps and early humans once lived side by side.
Q 08Chimpanzees split from the human lineage about how long ago?
About 7 million years ago
About 7 million years ago; 4.4-million-year-old Ardipithecus then undercut the old habit of treating living chimps as stand-ins for our ancestors.
Q 09What do chimpanzees fashion from leaves to get drinking water?
Sponge
Sponge: a chimp chews leaves until soft, then dips the wad into water to soak it up and drink.
Q 10Humans have one fewer chromosome pair than chimpanzees because two chromosomes did what?
Fused
Fused: joined end to end, they formed human chromosome 2, which still carries telomere remnants where the two tips met.
Q 11Which famous artist reportedly hung a painting by Congo the chimpanzee on his studio wall?
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso reportedly got it as a gift; in 2005 three of Congo's paintings sold at auction for about $25,000, far above their estimate.
Q 12What does a chimpanzee's wide, toothy grin usually signal?
Fear
Fear: chimps flash that closed, toothy grin when frightened, while a playful chimp instead shows an open-mouthed smile.
Q 13In Gordon Gallup's 1970 study, chimps showed self-recognition using what?
A mirror
A mirror: chimps marked with red dye recognised their reflections, yet monkeys given the same test showed no such ability.
Q 21Some scientists argued the Gombe Chimpanzee War's violence was caused by researchers doing what?
Feeding the chimps
Feeding the chimps: critics blamed Goodall's feeding stations, yet a 2014 study of 18 communities found killing rates unrelated to human impacts.
Q 22Which loud call do chimpanzees use to keep in contact over long distances?
The pant-hoot
The pant-hoot: each chimp's version is individually distinctive, so listeners can tell who is calling from far away.
Q 23What is chimpanzee 'drumming'?
Beating hands and feet on tree trunks
Q 14Where do chimpanzees sleep at night?
In a fresh tree nest built each evening
In a fresh tree nest built each evening: since each weaned chimp builds its own, field teams count nests to estimate how many chimps a forest holds.
Q 15Which food makes up the bulk of a wild chimpanzee's diet?
Fruit
Fruit: chimps swallow seeds and carry them long distances, making them important seed dispersers for regenerating forests.
Q 16Which monkey is the most common mammal prey of hunting chimpanzees?
The red colobus
The red colobus: males eat far more meat than females, who hunt it less often and tend to target safer, low-cost prey.
Q 17Wild chimpanzees at Ngogo, Uganda, have a life expectancy at birth of about how many years?
33
33 years is within the human hunter-gatherer range; Ngogo's abundant, steady food supply appears to explain why its chimps outlive most others.
Q 18In Mahale Mountains National Park, chimpanzees were seen dragging which predator's cub from its den and killing it?
The leopard
The leopard: though leopards prey on chimps, about 33 Mahale chimps surrounded one's den and dragged out and killed its cub.
Q 19Chimpanzees and African elephants both live in which kind of society?
Fission-fusion
Fission-fusion: the community splits into small, shifting parties, which tend to grow when a female is in estrus.
Q 20In chimpanzee society, which sex usually leaves its birth community at adolescence?
Females
Females: most move to a neighbouring community at adolescence, but some never leave the one they were born into.
Beating hands and feet on tree trunks: chimps pick big trees with broad buttress roots, apparently chosen so the sound carries far.
Q 24At Taï, hunting chimpanzees take on which set of specialised roles?
Drivers, blockers, chasers and ambushers
Drivers, blockers, chasers and ambushers: monkeys escape lone hunters in Taï's dense canopy, while Gombe chimps, in patchier forest, often hunt alone.
Q 25Ayumu, a chimpanzee at Kyoto University, out-performed human adults at what task?
Recalling briefly flashed numbers
Recalling briefly flashed numbers: but critics noted he'd had far more practice, and in a 2009 study two practised humans matched his accuracy.
Q 26Why is chimpanzee laughter hard for humans to recognise?
It sounds like breathing and panting
It sounds like breathing and panting: chimps laugh on both in- and out-breaths, while human laughter rides mostly on the out-breath.
Q 27Chimpanzees have used stone tools since at least how long ago?
4,300 years
4,300 years: hammerstones dug up in Côte d'Ivoire's Taï Forest still carry starch from the nuts ancient chimps cracked.
Q 28The first non-human tool-maker on record was a Kasakela chimp that modified a twig to do what?
Fish termites out of a mound
Fish termites out of a mound: Louis Leakey famously replied that we must now redefine tool, redefine man, or accept chimpanzees as human.
Q 29Chimpanzees in Senegal were found sharpening sticks with their teeth to spear which animal?
Bushbabies
Bushbabies: at Fongoli, females and young chimps hunt with these spears more often than adult males, the usual hunters elsewhere.
Q 30A 2022 study reported chimpanzees crushing what and applying it to their own and others' wounds?
Insects
Insects: no animal had been reported putting insects on wounds before, and dabbing them on others' injuries hints at caring for groupmates.